


Spare Change

by Dracoduceus



Series: Dimes in a Jukebox [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Hana is adopted by geese, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Lots of Innuendo, M/M, Minor Character Death, Rating for implied sexual content, Swearing, Tags May Change, The Farm calls her Mama Goose sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 46,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: Assorted short stories set in the same vein of Good Directions. Also posted on my Tumblr.Primarily takes place after the events of Good Directions. Don't necessarily need to read but there will be more context that way.





	1. Bastian & Efi (Part 1/?)

**Author's Note:**

> Bastian and Efi used to be very good friends. 
> 
> This little blurb won’t have any spoilers for the “A Plot Train” as I’ve taken to calling this hot mess of a story, but it covers the background of some of the characters. It’s been sitting in my Google Drive for more than a month and I’m not sure when I’ll get around to finishing it, but I thought I’d post it anyway.

When Bastian woke up, he wasn’t sure where he was at first. It was simply a blank room and he was strapped to a bed. The nurses told him he was at Watchpoint and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

His mouth was bandaged shut so he couldn’t speak and his arms weren’t moving. Nothing was, but he tried not to panic at it.

They told him he was at Watchpoint as if he’d forget so soon. When they changed his bandages, they told him there’d been an accident – clearly that had to have been the case. He had so many questions but lacked the ability to speak.

They dosed him on morphine and he slept.

When he woke up again, he could move arms. One was missing at the elbow; the other had two fingers missing. As the machines around him started shrieking, he found himself thinking crazily that now his fingers were trapped perpetually in the shape of the finger-guns he’d shoot at Ginny…

His last thoughts when they dosed him with sedatives were of Ginny and her gap-toothed smile.

They changed his bandages and told him he was at Watchpoint; that there had been an accident. It seemed that they didn’t know what else to tell him.

He slept and he thought because they bandaged his arms again and bound him to the bed. There was nothing else he could do.

The nurses came back. They checked on his chart, his medication, his IVs. Seeing him awake they asked him if he knew where he was as if he could answer. Sympathetically, they told him he was at Watchpoint and there had been an accident; did he remember it?

He couldn’t move his head to shake it yes or no. Eventually they left, murmuring sympathetically about the poor broken man in the room.

One day a little girl, instead of the nurses, came into his room. Her skin was as dark as charcoal but her eyes were light brown and her smile was brilliant. She sat next to his bed until a nurse – a massive woman that seemed to fill the space in the doorway – came to collect her.

Her name was Efi Oladele and from then on she visited at some point every day because she said he looked lonely. The nurse, Orisa, sometimes accompanied her.

The nurses visited. They told him he was at Watchpoint; that there had been an accident; they asked if he remembered it. Efi visited and Orisa came to collect her. He slept.

So passed weeks of his lonely time in bed.

A new doctor came by, Dr. Kayode Winston. He checked his chart, introduced himself when he saw Bastian was awake. When he asked his first question, he seemed to realize that Bastian couldn’t respond.

His bandages were removed and Dr. Winston examined him. He could move his head, his arms, all the way down to his hips; his jaw was still bandaged shut.

Dr. Winston asked him if he knew where he was; Bastian rolled his eyes and nodded his head yes. The man smiled and admitted that it was an admittedly bad joke. He asked if he knew who he was; Bastian nodded yes again. Then he asked if Bastian remembered what happened, why he was at Watchpoint; Bastian shrugged. There was red, black, gold; Ginny’s gap-toothed grin, a brindled orange feather braided in auburn hair.

Patting his arm sympathetically – careful of the various tubes and wires – Dr. Winston finally explained what was going on.

Bastian had been in an accident. Both legs were broken but his arms had escaped relatively unscathed. He had bitten off a portion of his tongue, he suffered severe cranial trauma, his jaw was not working quite right – the reason for the stiff apparatus and bandages around his head.

He tried to ask about Ginny but his lips and jaw wouldn’t move. Dr. Winston sat with him until he calmed down.

When Efi visited she gave him a crude drawing that she explained was what she thought he looked like. She told him that one day they would all get better and all be happy together. That was the next picture: Bastian (though she didn’t know his name), her, Orisa, and a few others she clearly knew from another ward.

He realized that she looked thin and there were bags under her eyes that no young child should have.

Orisa’s face was drawn when she came to collect Efi and she looked down at her with a kind of hopelessness that made Bastian’s heart hurt.

The nurses came. They changed his sheets, checked his IV, asked him if he knew where he was. He ignored them; they gave him empty platitudes and left.

Dr. Winston visited. He updated Bastian on his progress and overall health as he was aware of it. He called him “John Doe” and Bastian wanted to correct him but he still couldn’t speak.

Rolling his tongue in his mouth, he could feel the jagged edges where he had reportedly bitten a portion off; he wondered if he’d ever speak again.

Efi visited. She looked better than she had the last time but she looked thinner. But her smile was as bright as ever when she saw him. She told him that he was the only friend she had left; everyone else had died or gone home to die.

There was a peculiarly matter-of-fact way she spoke that broke Bastian’s heart.

But Efi smiled and patted his mostly-whole hand and fingered the plastic hospital bracelet. She told him that Orisa told her that they weren’t sure what his name was so he was called John Doe. She told him that she didn’t like that name; he looked like a Sebastian. She used to have a friend named Sebastian – his room was down the hall but he died of a blood clot and she hoped that he stuck around longer than her friend had.

Her honesty, while morbid and depressing in such a young child, was refreshing. Bastian decided he liked the sound of her voice as she chattered away at his side.

She continued to read his bracelet and then asked if it made him uncomfortable. He was rewarded by her smile when he shook his head no.

They had the same blood type, Efi announced happily. It was sad that they weren’t attached to the same doctor but she had seen Dr. Winston come by his room and wondered out loud if Dr. Tsoukalas would let Dr. Winston take over Bastian’s care.

Bastian hadn’t known that, but it didn’t matter because he had no way to ask the doctor the next time he visited, anyway.

Efi chattered at him until Orisa came to collect her. The woman’s honey-colored eyes were swollen as if she hadn’t slept in days. Still, she was gentle with Efi and swung her around at the foot of Bastian’s bed to her glee. Bastian tried to smile; he thought that Efi understood despite the bandages as she waved over Orisa’s shoulder at him.

The nurses came. They chattered like a flock of geese at each other was if he were an inanimate object. They changed his bandages and clucked their tongues at the wounds.

Dr. Winston visited again; this time he brought a pad of paper and a plastic Ziplock bag of pens and pencils. He suggested Bastian try to write his answers.

They gently slipped a pencil into his left hand so that it was pinched between his pointer and middle fingers – the only one remaining – and braced against his thumb. Writing was slow – he was originally right-handed and there were less fingers now for him to work with.

For simplicity, Dr. Winston wrote two letters in the top corners of the pad: Y and N. He asked yes/no questions and Bastian could point; he could write if he needed to.

It was frustrating, the complexity of his thoughts being stifled to the tiniest of trickles due to his still-healing injuries.

Do you know how long you’ve been here, Dr. Winston asked.

N, Bastian pointed.

Do you know your name?

Y. He wrote S E B before running out of space on the first half of the page. The second half took A S T I before he ran out of space again.

Dr. Winston asked if Efi had actually been calling him the correct name the entire time.

Y, Bastian pointed. On another page, he struggled through his last name.

The doctor said he knows that family; Bastian pointed to the Y Dr. Winston had rewritten at the top of the page. Was it the same family that manufactured war machines for the military? He pointed again at the Y.

They moved on. Bastian didn’t wonder about the awkward transition; he understood. The Metzen family’s most famous contribution to automated tanks was the Bastion unit, ostensibly named after their son Sebastian Metzen. An odd legacy to have and one that Bastian didn’t expect any doctor that had taken the Hippocratic Oath to appreciate.

Dr. Winston asked again if Bastian knew what happened; again he pointed to the N.

Bastian was glad for the opportunity to communicate with someone, no matter how rudimentary it was. He scribbled D R . S ? on the board.

The doctor made a face and admitted that he was working on taking over Bastian’s case from the Dr. Tsoukalas that Efi had mentioned.

Efi visited and Orisa carried a small plastic box with art supplies. As the little girl chattered, she colored next to Bastian’s bed. She checked the tag on his arm and declared that his name had been changed: Sebastian M – was that his real name?

She had dimples when she smiled; it reminded Bastian of Ginny and she had a gap between her front two teeth too. Efi declared that she liked that name but what kind of nickname could she give him?

His arm was feeling better so she gleefully read out loud the letters he traced on the blankets beside him. She read them out loud.

B!

A!

S!

L! No, T! Sorry, she hadn’t seen it.

I!

A!

N!

Bastian like the Bastion tanks, pew-pew, Efi had cried, making finger guns. She giggled when he made the same motion back, much easier for him because he was missing his ring and pinkie fingers.

She reminded him of Ginny, who he was beginning to remember more and more; he wondered what had happened to her but wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

One day Efi wanted to be an engineer, he was told; well, what she actually said was that one day she wished she could be an engineer…it was an odd way to phrase it but Bastian couldn’t really ask. She didn’t much like the OR-15 war machines with their blank faces but she liked the way the Bastion models had a little strip of optical lighting even if she thought the ones with red glass was eerie.

Leaning close, she’d whisper that sometimes she’d pretend that Orisa was a war machine. But Orisa was too kind – she was the kind of person that would stop traffic to help a line of ducklings cross the road, to climb a tree to rescue a trapped kitten. To Efi, Orisa was the strongest person she ever knew – even stronger than her parents! That’s why she sometimes imagined Orisa in the shape of a war machine, even if her nurse was incapable of such violence. Surely more strength would let Orisa help more people.

It was another odd thing to say but Bastian let her keep talking. She was nice to listen to and she, unlike the nurses that visited him, didn’t treat him like something that wasn’t alive.

When she came back to pick Efi up, Orisa hung the pictures Efi had drawn for him that day on the wall where he could see it with Bastian’s permission. Efi waved and smiled over Orisa’s shoulder as she was carried out.

The nurses came. They changed the bandages and his sheets but this time didn’t replace the ones holding his face shut. When they left he had lighter bandages, letting him see his injuries for the first time. They told him, speaking to him like a child, that he couldn’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t scratch or pick at his wounds as they left.

When Efi visited, she squealed in glee though at first Bastian was worried she was afraid of him. She told him she liked being able to see more of his face now even if it looked like a squished pumpkin.

Orisa scolded her for her indelicate phrasing but there was something like joy in her honey-colored eyes. He realized that for whatever reason she had been worried about Efi so even if he had been insulted by her words he couldn’t find it in himself to be unhappy with either of them.

He tried his best to smile and Efi squealed again and asked if she could draw him.

The picture she gave him when it was time for her to leave was hideous, much like a cartoonish version of Quasimodo or Igor with a narrow, nearly rectangular face, a lopsided mouth, and two eyes that were uneven in size. At that point he wasn’t even sure that it was just the way she drew or if that was how he looked.

Orisa looked horrified to see it but when he gestured, she smiled softly and hung it on the wall with the rest of Efi’s drawings. She told him that soon he’d run out of space; Efi liked that idea if Bastian did and promised that she’d work on her art for him.

Dr. Winston visited. He told Bastian that he was healing very well but the nurses were concerned with a possible infection in one of his legs and Bastian tried to convey without the use of his jaw, which ached, that he appreciated his candor.

The doctor helped him into a wheelchair and rolled him around the hospital. He took Bastian outside where they encountered Efi and Orisa reading together under a tree. They joined them in the middle of the novel but it was wonderful to Bastian to breathe in the fresh air and feel the sun on his face.

When they parted, Efi gave Bastian a crudely-drawn picture of him in his chair in front of the fountain with the glass tiles. Orisa and Dr. Winston traded looks.

The nurses came. They changed his bandages and spoke nervously to each other about something on one of his injured legs. One of them left and came back with someone that wasn’t Dr. Winston who barely acknowledged Bastian. He said the A-word that Bastian had been dreading but they didn’t do anything then; they left in a clump and only one of them seemed to remember that his wounds were still exposed to the air. She hastily rewrapped the gauze and left.

Dr. Winston came with the other doctor. He explained that it wasn’t an infection; they tested his blood and the nurses were overreacting. They left though Dr. Winston’s expression was drawn.

Efi didn’t visit.

The nurses came and tittered at them, at him. A male nurse kicked the female ones out and was kind enough to help him take a proper shower. Bastian was mortified but bore through it. The male nurse wasn’t chatty but he was kind enough and he tried not to take his frustration out on him.

He was allowed to look in the mirror for the first time.

Efi’s drawing hadn’t been too far off. His wavy blond hair had been shaved on the sides to accommodate a crown of scarring; his head was misshapen, not unlike the smashed pumpkin Efi had claimed it to resemble. There was scarring and black stitches along his cheek that made him look like a scarecrow from a horror movie and when he opened his mouth – painfully, as his jaw was so stiff it was almost immobile – he saw the large chunk missing from his tongue.

He was taken back to his bed.

He couldn’t sleep.

The nurses came and another doctor that removed the stitches crowning his head. The bandages around his arms came off replaced with taped-on gauze pads.

Efi didn’t visit.


	2. Deleted Chapter - Think of You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter was supposed to be just after Bastian’s Chapter (Blue Ain't Your Color) but ultimately I decided that I didn’t like it and that it didn’t feel like it had enough relevance to the “A Plot Train” and did very little to push the story forward so I made the decision to get rid of it. 
> 
> But since I worked on it as if it would be posted I figured…why not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet my friends for a girls’ night out  
> Seems there ain’t much to talk about  
> Same drinks that we’re all raising  
> But all of the toasts just don’t feel the same
> 
> We used to be life of the party  
> We used to be the ones that they wished they were  
> But now it’s like they don’t know how to act  
> Maybe they’re like me and they want us back  
>  **It’s like there’s always an empty space  
>  Those memories that nobody can erase  
> Of how bright we burned**  
> Well now it hurts, but it’s true  
> When they think of me they think of you.
> 
> ~ _Think of You_ by Chris Young  & Cassadee Pope

Bastian’s stare was firm, his stiff jaw set. This wasn’t the affable Bastian she was used to; this Bastian could and would stare her down. She looked away then back up at Lucio, hoping that her other friend would back her up.

“He’s right,” Lucio told her quietly. His voice was muffled slightly, having taken out the cochlear implant on his right side. The battery needed to be changed and some of the internal mechanisms needed to be cleaned and inspected; this is what he did while they spoke.

Trying not to pout – she  _hated_  feeling her age around them – Hana looked away. “ _Comfort is one thing; codependence is another,_ ” Bastian informed her through his speech board. He hated using it and only did it if he had something he believed really needed to be said.

When she looked back up at him, his eyes were concerned – and sympathetic.

She looked away again. “I don’t have anyone else,” she muttered stubbornly. “And he always looks so sad.”

“ _Doing it out of pity is worse than sincerity_ ,” Bastian told her. The computer didn’t have any inflection in its synthetic voice but her friend’s expression was kind. He nudged her gently with the prosthesis he was more often wearing on his left hand. It had been years, he had admitted once, since he’d worn it but he figured that now was as good a time as any.

Hana hadn’t been sure what that meant but she knew better than to ask.

She crossed her arms sullenly across her chest, no longer caring if she looked like a pouting child; her friends had never treated her as such. “I’m not  _insincere_ ,” she protested. “But…”

“You both experienced loss,” Lucio said quietly. “But leaning on each other means that you’ll never be able to stand on your own.”

Hana sighed.

Since Hanzo had left, she and Jesse had been spending a lot of time together. He hovered over her and she over him; more than once she’d found herself waking in the middle of the night, putting on her prosthetics, and sneaking into his room.

“I’m afraid that he’s going to leave me too,” Hana whispered. It sounded harsher than she intended as her teeth were gritted as she tried to hold back tears. “And he looks like a ghost. I don’t think I’ve seen him really smile in weeks.”

“ _No_ ,” Bastian agreed through his speech board.

Lucio looked up. “You know that logically he will not willingly leave you,” he told her gently. “Nor will we.”

Sometimes it was easy to forget that Lucio was in his mid-twenties and Bastian was actually close to Hanzo in age. They looked young for their ages and especially in the case of Bastian, their aging was obscured by the injuries they had sustained. Despite their apparent handicaps, both had hinted to her that they were  _capable_  of leaving Watchpoint but had remained because they had seen no reason for them to do so.

She peered at Lucio who smiled kindly at her. Not that she had ever seen him unkind but he always seemed especially sweet to her. But she knew that it was a very slippery slope to follow that train of thought. He was nearly three times her age – would be exactly next April – and he wasn’t interested in her in that way nor was she in him, not really.

But she loved him dearly – as she did Bastian – though even in her own mind she couldn’t fully explain their strange relationship.

“I _know_ ,” she said with a heavy sigh. “But I’m still afraid.”

Bastian did the drumming exercise Pums hounded him for with his prosthetic hand. His prosthetic fingers – not padded with silicone or another sort of false flesh, Hana had always been curious to note – taped in a ripple from pinky to thumb and back; it was as much an exercise as an absent sort of habit he did while he thought.

_Tap tap-tap tap sh-tap. Sh-tap tap-tap-tap tap._

Forward and back, back and forward. Lucio hummed an absent minded melody. “Logic has no place here,” Lucio said at last; Bastian grunted. They traded meaningful glances and not for the first time Hana wondered how long they had been friends if they were so able to speak to each other without using words.

“Just something to think about,” Lucio said and began reassembling his implants. Bastian began rolling up his speech board, packing it up into a neat little packet that Hana had always marveled at.

_Movie?_  Bastian suggested in his odd form of sign language.

That night, Hana dreamt.

_She watched her mother’s body be lowered into the ground. No…it had been thrown in like a careless child’s doll. Her arms had slapped against the edges of the grave. On its own the pile of dirt beside it rose in the air and began filling the hole._

_Like some kind of demented plant an elaborate headstone rose out of the ground. Words carved themselves into the stone:_

Song Ha-Yun

Dead after taking her daughter to Broadway.

Happy birthday.

_A lump rose in her throat._

_Beside it, another grave formed, and then another and another. People walked or limped or dragged themselves along the ground to the other graves: Hanzo, Jesse, Aimi, Genji, Rishi, on and on._

_One by one they fell into their graves, staring accusingly at her and in their wakes headstones rose._

She woke up.

There was no one in the kitchen of her spacious suite and having grown up closely with Aimi and her mother, it was still such a strange concept of living alone…more or less. She crept out of the kitchen, then out the front door.

Her suite opened to the ground floor of the Barracks in a far corner away from the common areas. It was closest to the back stairway that most people forgot about and allowed her access to the second floor that way. The head of the stairs poked up equidistant between Hanzo’s  _actual_  room and the one he shared with Jesse.

With a sigh, she leaned against the railing on the second floor. There were virtually no windows on the interior of the Barracks on the second floor, as the space was almost entirely taken up by the living quarters. Each door was illuminated by a soft light, set high near the ceiling to keep too much light from peeking beneath the doors. For the sake of zoning and safety and such, there were a few alcoves that sported large windows and it was in one of these nooks that Hana hid herself. Before she had questioned why there would be comfortable chairs but now she was glad for them, unclasping the prosthetics from her knees and curling up on the large chair.

Just as she was beginning to nod off she felt heavy footsteps from down the hall.

The big bodybuilder Aleksandra Zaryanova (or Zaryanova Aleksandra? Hana wasn’t sure) rounded the corner to her alcove and peered at her through the light of the moon as it peeked through the glass window behind her.

“You *** up late,” Zaryanova observed and there was just enough light to see her lips and read the gist of what she said. “*** * join you?”

Hana wiggled until she was able to sit upright. “Am I in your spot?” she asked, trying to be quiet but it was difficult without her cochlear implants.

The other woman flinched - so she wasn’t as quiet as she thought she was - and tapped her ear with a sausage-sized finger. Hana shook her head.  _Why are you up so late?_  Zaryanova signed, her massive fingers surprisingly deft and sure in their motions.  _May I join you for a bit?_

Hana nodded and tried to gesture for the other woman to take the seat she occupied. Zaryanova waved it off and curled herself up on the ground at Hana’s knees…or where they would be if they were still there. To her amusement, she was large enough that her head still came up to her collarbones.

_Dreams_ , she signed vaguely.

Zaryanova’s mouth opened in the ubiquitous sign (and sound) for surprised understanding. _Good or bad?_

_Why would I be awake if it was good?_

_Good dreams can be as painful as bad ones are terrifying,_  Zaryanova replied.

Hana wiggled in her seat. They sat in silence ( _ha!_ ) for a while and to Hana’s surprise, she realized that Zaryanova had brought a book with her.  _Is this your spot?_

_Not really_ , the woman replied simply.  _But I come here when it’s too cold to go outside or if there is snow on the roof._

Craning her head, Hana looked toward the window. It had been almost three weeks since the last time it had snowed and it was unusually mild in this area - so Hana had been told - for mid-March.  _Is there ice? It’s not too cold to go out._

_Your “too cold” and my “too cold” are two very different things,_  Zaryanova said with a hook-lipped smile.  _But there wasn’t any ice last night when I was out there. Did you want me to leave you alone?_

_I was just wondering why you were here,_ Hana admitted.

Zaryanova tapped her ear and Hana made a face.  _You weren’t too loud_ , she assured the girl. _But it’s very quiet this late at night and your left leg rattles_.

It wasn’t something she thought anyone noticed but she supposed that if Zaryanova had been awake and hiding in this corner, she may have heard Hana wandering around late at night. Fortunately, Zaryanova didn’t seem to be too much of a mind to scold her -  _what is a kid like you doing awake so late? Why haven’t you been taking care of your prosthetics properly? -_  and simply sat quietly against the wall.

_I’ve never been to the roof,_ Hana signed hesitantly after waving to get Zaryanova’s attention.

The woman smiled, making the scar across her eye tilt on her face.  _You will need warmer gear, she said. You are welcome to borrow mine - my room is closer._

With a short detour, Zaryanova draped obnoxious amounts of winter clothes over Hana’s much smaller body and helped Hana out to the rooftop balcony. Zaryanova went first to help Hana out and fussed just enough to make sure Hana was comfortable and not able to fall off the roof before settling beside her.

Hana wiggled until she freed an arm to tug Zaryanova’s sleeve. Bafflingly, despite it being far colder, she was only in a long-sleeved shirt and a vest. She seemed immune to the cold, not at all bothered by it even when her body came in contact with the cold flooring of the rooftop balcony. Zaryanova didn’t quite smile but her expression was less intimidating than normal.

_I’m afraid,_ she signed hesitantly.

_Do you want to share?_

Hana hesitated again. Zaryanova wasn’t Jesse - she had always been _there_ but she hadn’t been someone with which she associated with comfort despite her rather gentle nature.

_We are family here,_ Zaryanova signed, her face softening.  _Family helps each other. If I can, let me help you._

So Hana told her about her dreams, about climbing in bed with Jesse, how she was afraid that one day he won’t be there for her. She told her about her talk with Bastian and Lucio and Zaryanova wrinkled her nose.

_I suppose they are right,_ Hana finished.

Zaryanova shrugged.  _Not my place to say so either way, she replied. But I can see that they are only concerned about you._

Looking out over the depressingly barren fields, Hana sighed just to watch her breath mist on the air in front of her. She hoped that she never lost her quiet appreciation of it.  _I feel empty_ , she said, twisting back to face Zaryanova.  _Like everything I had ever known is gone._

_Maybe it is,_  Zaryanova suggested unhelpfully.  _But there’s nothing wrong with that - when the path before you has disappeared, you need to make your own_.

Hana frowned at her.  _Jesse said something like that. He said that Hanzo was off walking a path that he couldn’t follow._

_Jesse is occasionally wise._

She looked down and toyed with her fingers. The small headlamp that Zaryanova brought along cast a soft golden glow where it was trained to illuminate her book. She reached out into the cold air to tap Zaryanova’s shoulder again. If the woman was annoyed that she was interrupted from her reading, she gave no sign.

_What should I do?_

Zaryanova regarded her.  _Find your own path_ , she suggested.  _But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t occasionally intersect ours._

_Ours?_

The woman gave another hook-lipped smile.  _Ours. We are all family here. We will always be there to support our family in whatever way we can._

When Hana shivered, Zaryanova obligingly lifted one of her massive arms and allowed her to tuck herself against her side. She must have fallen asleep but Zaryanova had far from left her there for she woke up in her own bed, her prosthetics removed, and a large blanket that wasn’t hers draped over her.

She didn’t see Zaryanova until dinner, but everyone she encountered seemed to go out of their way for her. Ana gave her a sachet of lavender and sage for a hot bath, claiming that she was testing out a new recipe. In the afternoon, Gabe took her to Junkertown and she tottered around with Jamie and learned how to care for chickens and geese. They promised that if she was willing and able to wake up early the next morning, she could help them milk the cows and goats and one lone camel that glared from behind its double-walled enclosure.

So time passed.

Hana learned that she wasn’t the only one that woke up at odd hours for strange reasons. It wasn’t always Zaryanova, either: she’d caught Angela on a studying binge, Reinhardt with a peculiar haunted look in his expressive eyes, and of course Jesse, Bastian, and Lucio.

Every once in awhile, Genji would visit and despite knowing that she  _should_ love a visit from the Fun Uncle, she hated it a bit as well. There was a peculiar sadness to him and whenever she knew he’d be around, she’d hide.

Fortunately, Hog apparently hadn’t warmed to him and was more than happy to help hide her. She hadn’t gotten the whole story, but Jamie had told her it had to do with the reason Jesse lost his arm. Jamie, of course, had a tendency to exaggerate so she wasn’t sure if it was as he said it, but if so then it would make sense that Hog didn’t much like her uncle.

Hog  _did_  like Rishi, though, but there was no one that Hana had met in her short life that actually  _disliked_  the tattoo artist. Hanzo had been put off by him when they first met - and of  _course_  he had, it was  _Hanzo_  - but he hadn’t truly disliked the man. Things like that didn’t surprise Hana because his laid-back nature - why Genji occasionally referred to him as a monk or called him “Zenny” - Rishi was rather peculiar.

In any case, Hog (and Jamie and all of their assorted porcine shadows) didn’t mind Rishi and thus was allowed over when Hana was hiding. Though no one said anything directly, everyone was aware of  _why_  Hana was at Junkertown whenever Genji was over and if Rishi went along with his boyfriend-slash-sort-of-husband he would always find his way down to the farm.

He usually brought gifts in the form of small trinkets he found in their time apart, from stickers to small figurines or assorted video games that would fit in the ports of her game pad. Rishi had ever been honest, even when he perhaps shouldn’t be, so he admitted when she asked that it was painful for Genji to be around her sometimes.

Hana told him cautiously (cautiously because Daisy-slash-Bacon was snoring nearby and it was a paranoid thought but Hana sometimes thought that the pot-bellied pig was far more intelligent than she had any right to be) that it was the same for her and Rishi smiled sadly.

So time passed and things got better.

Jesse began smiling again and something small and brittle in Hana’s chest unfurled with each hearty guffaw. The pain was still there for him, just as it was for her, but they were getting better.


	3. Bonus Story: Hana's Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Hana's birth and how Hanzo was inspired to go to culinary school.

The slick, squirming  _thing_  in his hands wiggled and coughed. Fluid and viscera coated it, making its soft body slick in his hands; it was bright red, misshapen, and hideous.

But he expected the oddity even if he was disturbed by it. Babies had softer bones, he remembered learning in health class; when exiting the womb, they tended to be distorted by the…pressure.

Still, the squalling thing in his hands was  _ugly_.

“ _What does it look like_?” Genji yelled through the door. He had nearly fainted with nerves when Ha-Yun’s water had broken; when the contractions got worse and  _the baby was coming_ , he was just about useless and had been banished to the hall outside the bathroom. He had yelled very unhelpful things through the door –  _push! You can do it!_  and most memorably  _Is it dead?_  when he hadn’t immediately heard crying – until Hanzo told him that if he didn’t  _actually_  become helpful, he’d throw him out the window because he was upsetting Ha-Yun.

Genji had gotten his phone and started looking at anything he could find on emergency childbirth while their mother went to find someone that could take Ha-Yun to the hospital.

_Ugly,_  he wanted to yell back but was afraid of upsetting Ha-Yun who lay limp in the bathtub, exhausted from her ordeal. “ _It looks fine_ ,” he replied. Checking the baby’s groin, he made a face. “ _She_ ,” he amended.

Ha-Yun stirred. “ _Can I see her_?” she asked softly in Korean.

“ _One moment_ ,” Hanzo assured her in the same language. “ _She’s all messy_.” Using the towels hanging from the rack –  _we’ll need to burn them, later,_  he thought with a shiver – he wiped away the viscera coating the baby’s red skin. She breathed easier when the clinging strings of some kind of mucous were cleared from her nose and face and taking her first full, deep breath, she  _screamed._

Hanzo nearly dropped her but recovered, using another clean towel to wrap her as well as he was able to and transferred her to Ha-Yun’s waiting arms. She immediately began cooing over the baby, bringing her to her chest to nurse.

Even though he had already seen more than his fair share of Ha-Yun’s naked body, he still looked away to give her privacy. The baby made cooing, grunting sounds as it –  _she_  – suckled but had mercifully stopped her unbearable screeching with her mouth occupied.

Hanzo used that time to re-center himself and consider what else needed to be done. His mother would find Ha-Yun and her baby a ride to the hospital to have them look over her. He wouldn’t tell Ha-Yun, but there was a concerning amount of blood still in the bathtub but it wasn’t quite serious enough to warrant immediate attention; he’d give Ha-Yun some time with her child before he addressed the blood.

Her water had broken in the living room so there was cleaning to be done there and in the hallways as Ha-Yun was drawn to her bedroom to change her skirts and then the bathroom as the contractions got worse. The tile needed to be scrubbed, the hardwood wiped down and checked for damage, the rugs and carpet shampooed, the bathtub and bathroom scoured clean as well.

Genji and their mother would fuss over Ha-Yun and he would stay behind to clean, he decided. He’d done his part with his niece in helping her into this world and now he’d have to make their tiny apartment better for her mother while those better suited for it soothed Ha-Yun who was crying quietly as she stared down at the red-faced thing at her chest.

“ _Can I come in_?” Genji asked quietly through the door.

“ _Where’s mother_?” Hanzo asked.  _“If you come in, you’ll just faint_.”

“ _I won’t, promise_ ,” his younger brother whined. “ _C’mon, Hanzo_.”

“Y _ou nearly fainted when I was climbing in the tub_ ,” Ha-Yun retorted with steel in her voice despite the warm smile she was casting down on her daughter.  _“I doubt Hanzo wants to deal with another invalid today._ ”

Genji sighed impatiently. “ _Mom’s still looking for a ride to the hospital_ ,” he said. Then, “ _oh, hey mom_.”

Their mother rapped on the bathroom door. “I found us a ride,” she said in English. “They’ll be outside in ten minutes. I have some clothes for you, Ha-Yun.”

With her permission, Aimi switched places with her eldest son to help her get decent. The baby was shoved into Hanzo’s arms to hold while they worked and he obediently took it out to show Genji. Predictably, his younger brother looked disgusted and Hanzo couldn’t blame him.

“ _What’s wrong with her?_ ” Genji asked in a breathless whisper, looking up at Hanzo.

“ _That’s just the way babies are,_ ” Hanzo replied. “ _Her head will squish back down soon enough.”_

Genji wrinkled his nose as the baby fussed. Her eyes cracked open and she gave what could only in the very loosest of terms be called a grin, baring her pink gums. “ _Aww, she likes me!_ ”

“ _She can’t see you yet_ ,” Hanzo informed his brother.  _“Her eyes haven’t really adjusted. If she could I’m sure she’d start screaming in terror._ ”

The younger Shimada glared at Hanzo. He had dyed his hair electric blue, clumsily staining the skin around his neck and hairline as well as his pillowcases, bed sheets, and towels for the first handful of days. The shade wasn’t flattering, made worse with the uneven shades it faded to: varying hues of blue and green and in one unfortunate section of his hair, a sickly yellow-green. The shade did him no justice and he didn’t upkeep it as much as he should have, leading him to his predicament. Worse was that the style he wore his hair, loose and long enough to brush the tips of his shoulders, made it look even worse against his face and skin.

“ _It’s not a flattering shade,_ ” Ha-Yun said disapprovingly as she always did when they talked about his hair. She was leaning heavily on their mother and Genji immediately went to her side to take more of her weight off their tinier mother.

Aimi and Hanzo traded glances with a whole conversation remaining unspoken. He followed after them as they nearly dragged Ha-Yun out of their tiny apartment, down the narrow stairway, and out to the dingy streets of Chinatown. A nice car was waiting outside and to the brothers’ and Ha-Yun’s surprise the unspoken Queen of the streets,  _Sobo_ -Hana, stood at the passenger-side door.

_Sobo_ -Hana was, according to street lore, older than everyone there. She owned half of the block, had many successful restaurants and groceries, but refused to move out of her tiny apartment over the corner florist store. Like a hawk she sat in the window, watching the world go by and on days that her old joints weren’t bothering her, she sat with the florist in their little corner shop to mingle with the mortals below her gaze.

_Everyone_  called her  _Sobo_ because she cared for everyone even if the sour expression on her face never wavered. No one messed with  _Sobo_  and now it seems that the Shimadas would owe her yet again.

_Sobo_ ’s granddaughter, a woman closer to Aimi’s age named Aiko, helped Ha-Yun into the backseat and Hanzo obligingly handed the baby. “We thought of bringing the car seat,” Aiko explained. “But the hospital is just around the corner and down a few blocks and we wanted to fit as many of you as possible.”

“I’ll ride my bike,” Genji offered and without waiting for a response, went to the plain bike chained in the bike rack next to the door of their apartment. Aiko pulled the car seat out of the trunk and with an ease that spoke of much practice, strapped it into the seat and Ha-Yun’s baby into it.

“It’s not good,”  _Sobo_ -Hana grumbled. “But it’ll do and it’ll be safer than just holding her on the ride.” She crooked a wrinkled finger at Hanzo and he immediately moved over to her. He tried not to wince when she gripped his arms with fingers like talons. When she moved and twisted his arm, he obeyed her motions and she pressed a blue and gold silk bag into his hands. “ _Congratulations, uncle_ ,” she murmured to him in quiet Japanese.

He gave her a deferent bow. “ _Thank you_ , Sobo.”

_Sobo_ -Hana nodded imperiously but he thought he could see the slightest hint of a smile around her wrinkled lips. She was so old that she had more wrinkles than a Shar-Pei and he wondered if the weight of her skin was what kept her from smiling more. “ _I’ll send a cleaning crew to clean up_ ,” their landlord continued.

“ _With respect, no_ ,” Hanzo replied with another little bow. “ _I will stay behind and clean up but I thank you for thinking of us.”_

The old woman’s eyes twinkled. “ _Very well_ ,” she replied and handed him another little silk pouch, this one with pink and purple designs and white highlights. A Korean good-luck knot hung from a corner. “ _Take this in congratulations – I have a few others for the rest of your family_.” She patted his arm with a soft hand. In her old age her skin was pale and brittle and looked like the wrong touch would tear it like crepe paper. As a result her hands were always cool and clammy and always seemed extra soft when they touched Hanzo’s skin.

Hanzo bowed to her again when she released him. “ _Thank you for the service you are doing to my family.”_

To his surprise,  _Sobo_ -Hana bowed back, albeit very slight due to her age. She climbed into the car with Aiko’s assistance while Ha-Yun and Aimi stared at him through the windows to the backseat.  _Later,_  he mouthed to them and they nodded. Genji was already three blocks down and Hanzo shook his head; while his brother was grateful, he hadn’t expressed it as he should have.

He waved them down the street and walked back upstairs, collecting congratulations from the neighbors that poked their heads out their doors. A few of them gave gifts – small things in red _lai see_ envelopes with good wishes scribbled hastily in pen on the blank back or small offerings of oranges and tangerines. Dutifully he thanked each neighbor, explained that  _Sobo_ -Hana was taking the rest of his family to the hospital, and continued on his way.

Word had spread by the time he reached the open door of their apartment – typical that Genji hadn’t closed it in his excitement. A group of old women that Genji called the  _Go_  Gang stood with buckets, mops, and cleaning rags just outside the door. He knew better than to argue with them so instead he bowed to them, thanked them for their time, and the women set to cleaning.

Knowing that they wouldn’t allow him to assist, he jumped into the kitchen instead. The  _lai see_  envelopes were tucked into a chipped porcelain bowl for later, the neat silk bundles  _Sobo_ -Hana gave him placed gently on top; the oranges and tangerines went in neat stacks on the bookshelf beside the small family shrine that Aimi maintained in the corner. He would put a modest stack in front of the effigies but for now he would wait until he could know if he wanted to eat any; it was bad form, of course, to take back food from the ancestors.

First he made good, strong tea the way the  _Go_  Gang liked it and served them their cups in the living room. They tittered at him but didn’t turn it down, claiming that they hadn’t had a good cup of tea made for them by anyone save each other in a long time.

Next he made noodle stir fry, knowing that it would last much longer and be more easily shared amongst a large group. More neighbors came to visit, bearing gifts and Hanzo brewed more tea for them.

Mrs. Apple down the hall, called so because her first and last name said as one word meant “apple” in Chinese, brought a small tray of  _bao_  buns. Her neighbor, Herbalist Tang, brought a box of tea while his husband, usually referred to perhaps a little cruelly as The Faerie, brought a sizeable chunk of  _char siu_  pork which Hanzo added to the noodles. Realizing what he was using it for The Faerie ran back to their apartment and came back with a large wok full of ingredients and set himself up in the kitchen next to Hanzo.

Herbalist Tang resigned himself to being stuck there and brewed more tea though he did it with a soft smile for The Faerie. Hanzo wondered if he would ever smile at anyone like that and pushed the thought out of his head before it affected the food.

More people came by. The accountant that lived next door (who had never introduced himself, which was fine by Hanzo) poked his head in and offered a plastic bag of  _bok choy_  he tiredly explained was from his window garden – illegal by the law of their archaic lease, but _Sobo_ -Hana would never deny anyone a spot of color in their windows so long as it wasn’t causing damage. Hanzo thanked him and offered him a mug of tea while he waited for a quick  _bao-char siu_  pork-wilted  _bok choy_  sandwich.

Mrs. Kim, an elderly Korean lady down the hall that Ha-Yun frequently visited, shuffled into the door with the air of someone sneaking away from their live-in nurse. Herbalist Tang gave up his chair in the dining room to her and pleased to learn that Hanzo could understand Korean, chattered away at him, offering congratulations and demanding details about Ha-Yun’s baby in her native tongue. She brought with her, when she finally remembered why she had snuck away, a small porcelain bunny figurine that she had explained belonged to her daughter before she died. Hanzo thanked her graciously and placed it in the porcelain bowl with the other gifts as her nurse finally caught up with her and dragged her away.

The nurse returned fifteen minutes later with a quick apology and a $5 bill, explaining that she only had a few minutes before Mrs. Lee ran off again and she didn’t have a  _lai see_  envelope on her. Hanzo thanked her and added it to the bowl.

He disappeared into the kitchen, overwhelmed by people and gracious Herbalist Tang took over. By then he had heard just about every question asked and could offer the answers Hanzo had already given.

Neighbors kept visiting, offering congratulations. The  _Go_  Gang finished cleaning and sat around the dining room table, trading stories of herbal remedies and skeptical customers with Herbalist Tang; Hanzo and The Faerie continued to hide in the kitchen, adding ingredients found in cupboards and brought as congratulatory gifts. The gift bowl Hanzo had started overflowed and Herbalist Tang found a basket for the rest.

As it grew later, The Faerie disappeared for a half hour, returning with a basket full of groceries; Herbalist Tang rolled his eyes but kissed his husband’s cheek as he ran back to their apartment to fetch spices. They made chicken and ginger soup with rice noodles to spread the joy and Hanzo showed them how to make sweet red beans and  _zenzai_  from the recipe his mother learned from her family.

Herbalist Tang kicked his husband out of the kitchen, claiming that he can’t be shown up by The Faerie, and showed Hanzo how to make cake noodles like the ones in American restaurants, drizzled with beef and broccoli and thick brown gravy. Chattering like a little flock of birds, the Go Gang jumped in as well, washing and drying dishes in a constantly-moving conveyor belt of bowls and pans and plates.

As night fell,  _sake_  and  _shoju_  and beers were pulled out from various apartments and shared. No one drank too much, but they all had imbibed some so that they had rosy cheeks by the time Genji, Aimi, and Ha-Yun (with baby in tow) came back. Hanzo had warned them ahead of time so that they were quiet so the baby wouldn’t serenade them.

They were greeted by a large spread of food and also served heaping portions to  _Sobo_ -Hana and Aiko, who came up with them, with more than enough to spare. “ _What happened_?” Genji asked wonderingly, sidling up into a corner with his brother.

“Stone soup,” The Faerie (whose actual name, Hanzo had learned that afternoon, was Luis and The Faerie was a cruel nickname that Herbalist Tang’s family had given him) told them in English. “Everyone chipped in a little.”

Genji, who hadn’t had much to do with Herbalist Tang or The Faerie, peered at him suspiciously. “I’ve never heard that story before,” Hanzo admitted in English. “So I don’t get the reference.” To Genji, he explained, “Mrs. Apple bought  _bao_ buns, the accountant next door brought  _bok choy_ , Healer Tang and Luis initially brought  _char siu_ pork…we have a lot of tangerines from the other neighbors in the stairwell. Lots of people stopped by and brought food.”

Peering into the living room where everyone was gathered around and congratulating Ha-Yun and her little baby, Hanzo found that she was crying. They were good tears, though, as she smiled and shook everyone’s hand, accepted hugs, and kissed cheeks.

“She’s a good woman,” The Faerie said, expertly twisting Hanzo’s stir-fried noodles around his chopsticks. “I’m glad to see something go well for her.”

“ _Everyone just likes a good celebration_ ,” Genji said rudely in Japanese as he helped himself to food. Hanzo had made sure to save him a  _bao_ -wilted _bok choy-char siu_  pork sandwich which he shoved in his mouth. “ _Brother, who is this?_ ”

The Faerie wiped his mouth and transferred his chopsticks into the hand that was holding his plate; he offered the newly-freed one for Genji to shake. “I’m Luis, Herbalist Tang’s husband.”

“ _Don’t be rude_ ,” Hanzo said. “ _He helped cook the food you’re eating and he’s been nothing but kind._ ”

“I’ve done nothing to earn it,” Luis replied, seemingly unbothered by Genji’s obvious shock that such a pale man could so fluently understand Japanese even if he didn’t seem to actively speak it. “It’s fine, Hanzo.”

Herbalist Tang walked into their corner of the kitchen. He smiled and kissed his husband’s cheek gently. “Come on,” he told them. “Ha-Yun is about to announce the baby’s name.”

“-wouldn’t tell me the entire ride here!”  _Sobo_ -Hana was exclaiming though it was clear that she wasn’t really angry. “Impertinence!”

Clearly something had happened in the car that endeared Ha-Yun more to this fearsome woman. She didn’t have the history that the Shimadas had with  _Sobo_ and had been afraid of the tiny woman and her ivory cane. “Yes, _Sobo_ ,” she said. “I wanted it to be a surprise…but I hadn’t expected the entire building to be here when I finally told you!” Hanzo watched as Aimi handed Ha-Yun a thin folder which she then offered to  _Sobo_ -Hana. The old woman squinted down at the papers in the folder. “I named her after you.”


	4. Pums DID tell you to stretch more...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Earning the M rating**
> 
> Zarya is not amused. 
> 
> Angela ships it. 
> 
> Fareeha knows they're all going to hell. 
> 
> Hanzo is just trying to help...kind of.

Jesse gasped, dripping sweat. Hanzo pressed harder against him, spreading his legs further.

Han,” he breathed. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Over his shoulder, Hanzo chuckled breathlessly. His calloused fingers dipped lower, over the straining muscles of Jesse’s thighs, to draw teasing trails of sensation over the insides of his thighs. “I think you can take a little more.”

“No,” Jesse whined as Hanzo pushed harder. “ _Han_!”

Hanzo chuckled again. “Pums  _did_  tell you to stretch more.”

“I’m not sure this is what she was talking about!” Jesse shot back and whimpered when Hanzo tugged his legs open wider. “Han, you’re killing me.”

Clearly Hanzo was enjoying this far too much. He pressed a kiss to Jesse’s sweaty shoulder and nipped him gently. “Almost there.”

“‘Almost there my ass!’” Jesse tried to snap but it dissolved halfway into a whimper as Hanzo pressed more of his weight forward.

“It could be,” Hanzo murmured to him, running his fingers again over the insides of Jesse’s thighs. They shook and he pressed his palms more insistently there, soothing and teasing all in one. “Come on, you can do it.”

Jesse whimpered. “I can’t take anymore, Han,” he wheezed.

“Almost there.”

He whimpered. When Hanzo’s weight shifted off his back, he gasped and fell back on the mat, probably hurting himself worse than if he had slowly uncurled from his painful, contorted position. He gasped for air there, the position having pressed on his lungs.

“You can’t even touch your toes,” Hanzo teased, his hands on his hips.

“Shut up,” Jesse muttered without heat as he gasped for air.

“You  _wanted_  to try yoga,” Hanzo continued mercilessly. “I don’t know how you’d manage that if you can’t get through a few simple stretches.”

Jesse groaned. “Not anymore,” he swore. “Men ain’t made to bend like that.”

Laughing, Hanzo slipped into a split as if it were the easiest thing in the world and Jesse thought he stopped breathing.

Zarya walked past them, wiping away the sweat from her workout with the towel around her neck. “You guys are disgusting.”

* * *

Angela sat on one of the benches in the corner, an elbow propped on her knee and her chin resting on her fist. “What is it that is so attractive about watching them work out?”

In front of her, Fareeha continued her curls and tried not to watch the two of them in the mirror.  _Jesse is like a brother_ , she told herself.  _You don’t stare at your brother_ or _his boyfriend_. “They’re walking innuendos,” she said dryly. “And Hanzo without a shirt and covered in sweat looks like something out of a porno.”

“Oh. Right.”


	5. Deleted Chapter - Rock On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once more, I managed to write an extra chapter. Who’s surprised? Not me. 
> 
> After a lot of deliberation, I decided to cut this from the final story since it was only vaguely related to the “A Plot Train” and was instead probably somewhere around the “C Plot” range. Some actions here will affect the future but not in the arcs I currently have planned for Good Directions right now. 
> 
> But since I worked on it as if it would be posted as a part of the hot mess I call Good Directions…I thought I’d post it. This is supposed to take place just after Girl Crush (Chapter 23) but can also fit after What Hurts the Most (Chapter 22).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Rock on like I don’t miss you  
>  Rock on like it’s all good  
> Rock on ‘till I forget you  
> Just like I wish I would**
> 
> I gotta tell you I can’t stand  
> The thought of someone else holding that hand  
> I should have put a rock on  
> And baby rock on, yeah, I should have put a rock on  
> Yeah baby rock on  
> Yeah I really did mean it when I wished you the best.
> 
> ~ _Rock On_ by Tucker Beathard

We’re going out tonight,” Tracer told her quite aggressively.

Looking over the top of her book, Amélie’s raised an eyebrow at the other woman. Not that she expected Tracer or Em to tell her when they were coming or going – they were both too old for her to coddle them like horny teenagers – but she appreciated the _polite_  gesture.

Emphasis on  _polite_.

“Enjoy,” Amélie replied dryly. “I will be sure to not chain the door.”

“Yes,” Tracer said waspishly. Amélie didn’t rise to the bait and returned to her book. She could hear Tracer huff. “We’re going out with Jesse.”

“Enjoy,” Amélie repeated.

Grumbling, Tracer stomped off. “I’m sorry,” Emily said and Amélie glanced over the top of her book at the redhead.

“Do not apologize for her,” Amélie told her, trying to soften her voice so it wasn’t as brusque.

“She’s being unfair to you, even after all you’ve done for us.”

Amélie waved it off, pretending to go back to her reading. “I did not do it for your thanks…but it is appreciated.”

“We’re going out,” Emily said much more gently than Tracer had. “There’s a restaurant and brewery in town that we’re going to try with Jesse. It was  _supposed_  to be a double date but…now it’s just going to be the three of us.”

That caught her attention even if she wasn’t entirely enamored with the life of the cowboy. “Did something happen?”

Emily bit her lip and folded herself into the chair across from Amélie. Recognizing the pose, she closed her book with a finger tucked between the pages to keep her place and devoted her attention entirely to Emily. (Not that she  _hadn’t_  been giving Emily all of her attention already, but she had appearances to keep. Gérard used to say that she was a cat like that.)

The redhead leaned across the small end table tucked between their chairs. Upstairs, they could hear Tracer walking around as the old floorboards creaked with each step. Amélie made a mental note to have it checked when one of the creaks was much louder than the others. She’d have to make a call to an old architect friend of hers but that was a problem for later.

“Hanzo – Jesse’s boyfriend – left him,” Emily told her quietly.

“Did something happen?” Amélie wanted to know.

Emily shook her head. “They don’t know where he went, or at least Jesse hasn’t told us,” she told Amélie.

“Did he go missing?”

Again, Emily shook her head. “No,” she added. “He went on a trip.” She smiled weakly at the face Amélie made. “I know. Jesse won’t really tell us more.”

“I don’t blame him,” Amélie replied. She pursed her lips thoughtfully. Tomorrow she was going to visit Lukas and Gérard; she’d ask Orisa, who would surely know something and if there was anything Amélie could do – short of actually talking to the cowboy which would surely make it worse – to help. “Thank you for telling me. I hope you have fun tonight.”

Emily smiled, but then she always seemed to be smiling. “Tracer’s probably going to try to drink him better,” she said. “So it’ll be interesting at least.”

“How are you getting there?” Amélie asked.

“We were all going to bike over,” Emily told her. “It’s a nice day and it wouldn’t be too bad of a trip to pick him up at the Farm and then go on to the brewery.”

Amélie frowned at her. “Biking may be difficult drunk, especially with a…personality like Tracer’s.” she flicked her fingers toward the hanging chest near the kitchen door. “If you will be the DD, take the Hummer.”

“Are you sure?”

Emily smiled when Amélie snorted. “If you get arrested for drunk driving, that is all on you but otherwise that thing is built like a tank – you are less likely to hurt yourselves in it and it can drive the roads at the Farm much easier than any of the other cars.”

“Then why do you drive low-riding cars when you go there?” Emily wanted to know.

“I like the horrified looks I get.”

The redhead hid a smile and a giggle behind a hand. She stood and brushed imaginary dust off her work slacks. “I’m going to take a quick shower and get changed,” she told Amélie needlessly. “Then we’re going to leave right after; we’ll probably be back late.”

Amélie gave her a quick two-fingered salute and went back to her book.

“Like an American zombie,” Orisa told her the next day when she asked. “Poor thing.” Though she looked rumpled and sleepy, her face lacking the dramatic white paint that so often decorated it, she sat as tall and regal as any queen.

Amélie snorted into her tea. It was made with strong, bitter herbs – Orisa’s preferred tea rather than hers – but it was good when it was seasoned with orange peel and cinnamon. Still, it was Orisa’s turn to make the tea so she couldn’t complain even if she had been of a mind to. “As opposed to an American cowboy?”

The other woman didn’t quite smile – she only did that with her kids – but her eyes shone with amusement. How she could smile with her eyes was beyond Amélie. It was some kind of dark sorcery. “A cowboy zombie.”

“ _That’s_  horrifying,” Amélie muttered though there was no heat to her words. She sipped her tea as Orisa delicately selected a cookie from the pile Amélie brought to share with her.

“It’s a shame that Lena will be leaving for South Wind,” Orisa said wistfully. “I will miss her cookies.”

“If only she was moving there too,” Amélie grumbled though it once more was without heat. She and Tracer had never really gotten along – they had a very…volatile relationship if even “relationship” was the right word – but they had been…in their situation for nearly five years. Their relationship hadn’t gotten worse, but it hadn’t gotten better during that time. But despite any misgivings either of them may have had for each other, Amélie was glad that Tracer’s baking career could continue. The move to South Wind would be good for her even if Amélie would miss her in Kings Row.

Orisa nodded serenely. “If only.” She knew.

They sipped their tea.

“I don’t know much,” Orisa told her hesitantly. “But I spoke to Ana Amari…the older woman with the eye patch.”

Amélie snorted. “The sand flea,” she said. “Leathery old hag.”

The big nurse clucked her tongue. “Yes. Her. What would she say if she heard you call her that?” her golden eyes were amused despite her outward disapproval.

“She called me a  _croissant_  and a Frog and a few other words that aren’t fit for polite company.” Amélie sniffed though there was a wicked glint of humor in her eyes. “I don’t know  _why_ a  _croissant_ would be an insult – I for one would _love_  to be a soft, buttery  _croissant_.”

Orisa slapped a hand over her mouth to keep her laughter from waking the rest of the cottage. Oblivious, the rattling melody of Kayode and Torbjörn’s snores continued and they both breathed joking and exaggerated sighs of relief.

“She has a lovely sense of humor,” Orisa said when she got a hold of herself.

Amélie nodded serenely as if they discussed the weather. “Dark and dry as that God-forsaken desert she came from. I like it.”

“Could you call it God-forsaken?” Orisa wondered. “Didn’t Judaism originate there?”

“I don’t know; I was never one for religious observance.”

Orisa shrugged. “ _But_ she told me that Hanzo – that’s Jesse’s boyfriend – left to go on a trip around the world.”

“And he didn’t take Jesse with him?”

“Ana Amari told me that Hanzo’s estranged father paid for all of his expenses,” Orisa replied with a shrug. “I don’t know if he didn’t agree to send Jesse with Hanzo or if Hanzo even asked.”

Amélie snorted into her mug. “I’d guess the second.”

“I as well.”

They sipped their tea.

“It’s getting late,” Amélie murmured as they were nearing the bottom of their mugs. “And I need to stop by the Farm before I hit Kings Row.”

Orisa nodded. “Say hello to your men for me?”

Even though it was a common request, Amélie was always pleasantly surprised when Orisa made it. She smiled shyly up at the nurse as she collected their tea things. “I will,” she promised, leaning down to pick up her bag.

Given the context for the hangdog look on Jesse’s face, Amélie wondered when she finally made it to Jack’s produce stand. She tried her best to soften her words but her tongue was sharp and venomous and she couldn’t promise anything.

Not with the feeling of Jack’s eyes on her, even though she was fairly certain that it only her imagination.

She paid him, thanked him as pleasantly as she was able to, and left. “Coward,” she told her reflection as she shifted gears and thundered down the street.

The next day Emily told her as she was leaving that after her and Tracer’s shift, some of the workers from the Farm (and Jesse) would be going out for dinner and drinks again, so Amélie shouldn’t wait up for them. Amélie once more gave her use of the Hummer – so long as Emily was the designated driver.

They had long since learned that Tracer couldn’t be trusted for this.

That day proved to be a rough one. It still happened even after all these years; Amélie wished it didn’t, but then…she wished for a lot of things.

Later that evening she found herself curled up in Efi’s Corner, unable to bring herself to even properly visit her men. A bottle of Veuve Clicquot was cradled against her chest – despite champagne being a celebratory drink, the name was fitting. On her darker days she’d sometimes cross out the Clicquot on the label and write Guillard.

Today she had only been stopped because she couldn’t find a Sharpie.

The bushes rustled near the gate and Amélie remained as still as the cherub tombstones beside her men. Despite the strange cleanliness of the graveyard, Efi’s Corner was still rather secluded and it was unlikely that anyone would see her if they weren’t looking for it – or her.

The cowboy came through first, stumbling a little in his inebriation. A blonde she vaguely recognized from the Diner leaned against him, her arm casually around his waist and Amélie wondered if was platonic or romantic – had he already gotten over Hanzo?

Emily and Tracer wandered through next, followed by a pink-haired giant and Ana Amari’s daughter.

Watching them, she took a long drink from her cup – a red Solo cup, the classiest of vessels to drink her feelings away. The open air of the forgotten graveyard meant that their voices carried even though they tried their best to be respectfully quiet.

“I heard about this place,” the blonde was saying. “But I never found it.”

“Orisa told me that one of her kids found it while they were playing hide-and-seek,” the cowboy –  _Jesse,_  she should really call him by his name – told her. If he knew about Efi, he said nothing and Amélie was glad for the omission regardless. She and Orisa were both of a thought that they did not want to speak much of the dead – ill or otherwise. “It was in such sorry shape…I just had to fix it up.”

The people with him murmured something that she didn’t catch as she took another drink. The bubbles of the champagne tickled her throat and tongue. She poured another full cup and mourned silently that she was nearly done with the bottle but it was just as well – she had only brought two with her and two was more than enough for one night. More than she should have, really, but to each their own.

“Em!” Tracer said, a little too loud as was her tendency when she was drunk. Amélie had to give her credit, though, because she wasn’t shouting…yet. “Look!”

Emily walked over to where Tracer was looking and Amélie’s heart dropped past her stomach. Gritting her teeth, she took another long drink, knowing she’d need it. “Oh,” Emily breathed.

“What is it?” the pink-haired giant asked with a heavy Russian accent.

“Gérard Lacroix,” Emily read from the engraved granite stone in front of her. “And Lukas Lamb.”

Tracer shuffled down the line. “I haven’t been able to find the names of those,” Jesse said quietly as she stopped in front of a short memorial of playing cherubim. “But they’re about as new as the most recent ones.”

“They didn’t have names yet,” Emily murmured.

“ _Oh_ ,” the blonde sighed. “That’s so sad.”

Amélie drank again and poured the rest of the champagne into her cup. She cuddled the now-warm bottle against her chest. It was strangely satisfying to cuddle.

“I don’t like it here,” Ana Amari’s daughter said. “Can we leave?”

They wobbled where they stood (or perhaps that was her own inebriation) before leaving. Jesse told them that he would catch up and once the last of their heels had disappeared through the gate, he turned to Efi’s Corner and met Amélie’s eyes.

Very carefully – visibly unsteady and not just because Amélie herself was drunk – he made his way over to her. “Good evening,” he said, his voice only slurred a little. She thought he said something like her name but his accent – sounding more Texan than New Mexican and she  _hated_  that she could tell the difference – made it sound strange. She ignored that train of thought.

“ _Salut_ ,” she offered instead.

Jesse cocked his head to the side like a curious dog. “May I sit with you?”

“I’d offer you a drink but I don’t have much left,” Amélie said in lieu of an answer, unhappy to hear the accent she’d suppressed since Gérard coming back.

But it was better than the alternative.

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink anymore,” Jesse suggested but it was a halfhearted one at that and he made no move to stop her when she poured the rest of the champagne down her throat. He took the bottle from her and she let him. It was empty anyway.

Did she say that out loud? She peered at him in the dim light cast by the moon. It didn’t seem like it.

“ _Vee-uu-ve Klin-qwot_ ,” Jesse said, sounding out the label.

Amateur! Heathen! Blasphemer!

She said none of this out loud as through the swirling gate, Orisa entered like an avenging warrior from some ancient saga. The _Iliad_  maybe? Or the  _Odyssey_?

_Paradise Lost_?

Amélie hadn’t cared for  _Paradise Lost_ though she did appreciate the way it was written. She had especially liked the way it sounded in Lukas’s heavy Texas drawl.

“ _The Cowboy shouldn’t speak in French,_ ” Amélie complained to Orisa as the nurse approached.

“Good evening,” Jesse said to Orisa, listing a little.

The nurse pursed her lips. “I’m glad Angela told me you were out here,” she said instead of what was clearly on the tip of her tongue. There was a smear of her white makeup that she had missed as she wiped off her face at the end of the day and Amélie felt bad though she couldn’t figure out why.

She usually couldn’t but Orisa very rarely held it against her.

“ _Oh, please_ ,” Amélie muttered. “ _It’s a lovely night to be out_.”

Orisa sighed but there was some affection in it as she walked over to them. “Come on, let’s see if Emily and Tracer can take you home.”

“ _Why?_ ” Amélie complained. She didn’t fight it when Orisa gently scooped her up. “ _I like it here_.”

“Is this…regular?” Jesse asked hesitantly.

Amélie lurched as Orisa shrugged. “ _My cup and bottle_.”

She wobbled a little as Orisa looked down. “Jesse, will you get the other bottle and her cup, please?”

They both watched as Jesse obeyed, himself a little wobbly, but succeeded in cradling both of the bottles to his chest. His metal hand, which had less grip than his flesh hand, held the red Solo cup. “How long have you been out here?”

“ _Long enough to finish two bottles.”_

“That’s not an answer,” Orisa said, clicking her tongue. It wasn’t disapproving – Orisa never really was with her – but it was a little chiding in a way that none of them would say out loud.

“ _I don’t know what to tell you_.”

Jesse trailed after them. “Is that French?”

“ _Ouais_.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Jesse hopped forward and after a bit of drunken juggling, pulled back one of the branches that blocked the gateway. “I thought I trimmed this.”

“ _Maybe it grew. Plants do that_.”

Orisa bobbed Amélie a little harder than necessary as she shrugged. They edged around the cottage and Amélie caught a brief glimpse of the maintenance man changing into pajamas. She gagged a little and Orisa looked at her with concern.

Even nurses didn’t like to be puked on.

_Especially_ nurses.

“I’ve never heard her talk so much,” Jesse murmured in the not-quite-whisper that drunk people had.

“She can be chatty when she puts her mind to it,” Orisa grumbled but it wasn’t necessarily unhappily. They rounded the corner of the cottage nearest the parking lot and found the group Jesse had come with milling around. Mei was speaking to them even though she looked ready to fall asleep. “I was hoping to find you here,” she said to Emily and Tracer, both of which spun around to look at her.

Amélie wondered if she should feel bad that they knew Orisa because the nurse had them on speed-dial for situations like this.

“Oh, dear,” Emily said and trotted over to help as Orisa set Amélie on her feet. “I thought you’d stay in today.”

Amélie scoffed.  _“It’s such a nice night out, I wish you’d just leave me there.”_

Those that understood French ignored her; Tracer shook her head when Emily glanced at her. “Are you able to get her home or should she stay over here?” Orisa asked Emily.

The redhead smiled. “Sure! I have the Hummer tonight so we have more than enough room for her in the backseat.”

“We came separately,” the blonde said as she leaned against Ana Amari’s daughter. “I’m driving.”

Orisa clicked her tongue chidingly but said nothing.  _“Drink water when you get home_ ,” she told Amélie.

“ _I’m not_ that  _drunk_ ,” Amélie protested as Emily ducked under her arm to brace her. To her surprise, Tracer did the same on her other side as they led her to her car.

“Is this a normal occurrence?” the pink-haired woman asked. Her voice wasn’t as quiet and Amélie flinched.

Orisa clicked her tongue again. “She’s still mourning,” she said vaguely. “It’s a process.”

“Mourning?” Jesse asked.

“Of course.” That was Mei, to Amélie’s surprise. “It’s hard to learn to live without someone.”

The Hummer was quiet on the ride home but it was just around the corner – one of many reasons that Amélie typically chose Watchpoint as her location of choice to partake in her vice as she could easily walk home if she was unable to drive herself.

Jesse was at Jack’s Farm the next morning and he didn’t really look at her strangely, for which she was grateful. Still, she owed him an apology even if it curdled something in her mouth.

“I apologize for my conduct last night,” she said a little sourly.

The Cowboy tipped his hat, decorated with a gaudy golden badge and a few fake bullet casings. It was cleaner than his old one, and Amélie was rather surprised to see it. “No reason to be,” he told her, much to her surprise. “We all got our vices.” He didn’t drawl at her in that stupid accent, for which she was grateful; she didn’t know if she’d be able to bear it at the moment.

“ _Ouais_ ,” she murmured. It felt nice to speak French again but now was not to be rewarding herself, not when she still had debts to pay for her bad decisions. “I can get it,” she told him when he made a move to help her as he always did.

Jesse looked surprised, rocking on his heels. “I’ve always helped you when you visited,” he said very carefully. “It would feel weird not to…unless you would rather not have company.”

“I said nothing about company.”

The cowboy nodded and walked with her down the aisles, remaining a polite distance away. A little girl with curved prosthetic legs bounced down and stopped when she caught sight of Amélie.

“You’re up early,” Jesse said to the girl.

“I’m late,” she complained. “I’m supposed to be helping Jamie right now.” She squinted up at Amélie but to her relief, said nothing. The girl pouted at Jesse. “Can you take me to Junkertown?”

Jesse smiled and there was something in his face that gave Amélie pause. She returned to her inspection of the fruits Jack’s Farm had. Given her druthers, she’d go  _anywhere_  else but Jack’s Farm had the cheapest produce and met the high standards that she and Tracer set for Kings Row. She may hate the man, but even she had to admit that he knew how to farm.

_Farm Boy_ , Lukas used to call him. He would have been chewing a cigar or that ghastly thing he called  _dip_  but she made him stop.

She shook off the voices of ghosts and loaded the milk crate she brought with her with bags of beets, spinach, and strawberries. At this point she grabbed produce on autopilot, having long since memorized the current seasonal menu at the cafe and the contents of her kitchen’s walk-ins.

“My name is Hana,” the girl said to her with a beaming smile. She held out a brave hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Amélie peered down at her and shook her hand, half afraid that she would break beneath her touch.  _“Salut,”_  she said. “Orisa speaks often of you.”

The girl squealed excitedly. “She does? How is she?”

“She misses you,” Amélie said honestly, still unsure of how to deal with this tiny human. She knew from Orisa that Hana Song was far from breakable, but still Amélie feared.

Unbidden, an image of a still form - a soft purplish doll - with clenched fists and tiny eyes lying limply in a pink blanket rose in her mind and she swallowed the lump in her throat. She had broken  _that_  one, after all…how would Hana be any different?

Amélie forced herself to smile down at Hana. “We meet often enough for tea - I will tell her you asked about her?”

The girl bounced, seemingly not noticing Amélie’s brief lapse, and squealed. It seemed too loud but perhaps that was just Amélie’s own perception of the sound. Jesse watched them with a bemused expression as Hana helped Amélie.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” Hana said, not quite accusingly.

True enough. “Amélie Guillard,” she told Hana with a slight smile as Jesse was tallying her produce.

He looked up at her in surprise. “ _You’re_  Amélie Guillard?”

Amélie tried not to be too annoyed. It wasn’t fair of her to assume that Jesse would know her name, but she’d have thought that in the past few years that she’d been a fixture at the stand, he’d at least have some idea…perhaps that was too prideful of her. “ _Ouais_ ,” she said instead.

“I thought your name was  _Gallagher_.” Hana gave a strangled squeak, her hands pressed to her mouth. “Hush, you,” Jesse said to Hana without heat. His cheeks were pinkish.

“No,” Amélie said flatly. “Why would you think that?”

“You own Kings Row,” Jesse added, seemingly too shocked to process her question.

Amélie snorted. “Yes. Why did you  _think_  I came every other day for  _crates_  full of produce?” His blank look told her that he hadn’t even considered that. “Who told you my name was Gallagher?”

“Ah,” Jesse said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Jack.”

Of course. “Guillard sounds  _nothing_ like Gallagher,” she muttered, shoving the amount she owed him into his hands.

“He’s not very good at pronouncing things,” Hana said. “He tried to say my mom’s name but it came out sounding stupid.”

Amélie glanced down at her. “Who is your mother?”

“She’s dead,” Hana said simply. “We sent her ashes to Japan.”

Awkward. “I’m sorry,” Amélie murmured. Her eyes flicked up to Jesse who looked just as awkward as she felt. “I hope you don’t want to grow up and be a cowboy,” she said, trying to go for something lighthearted. What  _did_ one say to a child that lost her mother?

“No,” Hana said with a smile. “But Jamie’s teaching me how to make cheese!”

Amélie cocked her head to the side. “That sounds like fun. So you want to be a farmer?”

“I don’t know yet,” Hana explained brightly. “I’m only ten.”

Despite herself, Amélie had to smile down at her. “Forgive me,” she told her. “I had thought I was thinking of someone much older.”

Hana giggled. “Thank you.” She turned to Jesse. “Come  _on_ , daddy-o!” she exclaimed. “ _I’m late!_ ”

Ducking her head to hide a smile, Amélie tucked her crate of produce into the car and left them with an appropriate goodbye. When she got to Kings Row, she tugged Emily aside and told her about the interaction that morning.

“I didn’t know he had a daughter,” the waitress said, stretching out her long legs in the chair in Amélie’s little-used office. “But I remember seeing Hana. They have people they call Strays on the Farm - she’s one of them.”

Amélie hummed thoughtfully.

Emily leaned forward. “I know that look in your eye,” she said warningly. “ _Think_ before you act, Amélie.”

She waved it off. “I want nothing to do with Jack,” she grumbled.

“Don’t mess with Jesse, either,” Emily said but it was less severe - they both knew that Amélie wasn’t inclined to do so, intentionally or not. “He’s hurting.”

Amélie hummed. “We all are.” She thought of Hana and how she called Jesse  _daddy-o_ , of her easy affection for him that was evident as she tugged on his hands as she begged him to take her somewhere called Junkertown. “Comp his meals if he eats here and give her an extra iced hot cocoa if she comes along with him,” she said to Emily at last. “Or rather, add it to my tab.”

“Money doesn’t solve everything,” Emily murmured quietly, but Amélie knew that she would obey - was more than happy to ease the suffering of a man in mourning.

“It doesn’t fix problems,” Amélie agreed absently. “But it can ease burdens.” she regarded Emily. “Find yourself a replacement,” she ordered. “I will call Genji and speak to him about having you transferred to South Wind as well. You still have time to train someone up.”

Emily was quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” she murmured instead of saying anything else that may have been on her mind.

That was for later.

The redhead stood and left to return to her job. A busboy (Jacob, a summer worker) came to take the produce to the back for sorting before the lunch crowd came in and depleted the stock they already had in the kitchens.

Amélie sat alone in her office and thought. On either corner of her cluttered desk was a wedding picture; at the very center were two ceramic plates with the imprints of two tiny feet and the dates of their deaths. As it did sometimes, the smell of cigar and expensive French cigarettes seemed to waft around her and she sighed.

She wouldn’t worry too much about Jesse, she decided. Let Ana Amari do that ; he was, after all, the closest she had to a son. A younger version of the old sand flea stared from a picture on the bookshelf, where she was surrounded by Lukas, Gérard, Jack, and Gabe. Amélie had no place among them, hadn’t earned the honor of their trust or affection save for the obvious culprits.

She wondered if the group even knew that Lukas or Gérard were even dead, much less buried in the forgotten Watchpoint cemetery but those, as always, were musings for another time.

But Jack, Gabe, and Ana had started the farm, had purchased the land from an older family that had lived there and done nothing with it but allow weeds to grow and deer to live until they leaped to their deaths in front of semi-trucks and cars on the road that bisected it. The land grew and the Farm was and probably always would be a haven.

They were a family that had included her late husbands…but not her and that was fine by her…Lukas had always said that she was too much like a cat for her own good.

Jesse would be fine because they were his family and they protected their own.

She tried not to look too hard at Lukas’s picture and think of the empty coffin she had buried.

Leaning back in her chair, she took a few meditative breaths and listened to the sound of the kitchen, which she could just barely hear if she concentrated hard enough. No, Jesse would be fine with them and her help wasn’t always welcome. He would learn to live with the emptiness in his chest, the same as she did; she’d just have to make sure that he didn’t learn to fill it with vices.

Sending Emily along with Tracer to South Wind would be a good move for everyone. It was time that she took control of her destiny. She scribbled a quick to-do list so she would hold herself accountable later:

_Call Eskridge - fix up house_

(She hadn’t forgotten the sound of the extra-loud creak in the floor and she knew that she’d need to fix that sooner rather than later when someone fell through the roof.)

_Call Satya - discuss increase in donation_

(Kings Row had been doing inordinately well in the past half-year. It was time to better support the final resting place of her loves. She knew that it was also in part due to Jesse and Hana’s clear love of the place…and, of course, Orisa who she loved more than anyone would understand.)

_Call Hanzo Yamada - discuss Project Watchpoint_

She swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought of calling a friend of her late husband’s. But Hanzo Yamada was a good man - partial to cats and their quirks and so had charmed her where her husbands’ other friends had not.

And if there was a cause that he was fond of, it was a good heartwarming story of a historical business in the red. She checked the time and opened her phone to check the time in Tokyo. It was late, but in the past she had called much later and he was understanding; 13 hours was a large gap to overcome.

Leaning back in her chair, she regarded her list. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached for the phone


	6. Kim Kim's Jewelry Shop (1/?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two emotionally-stunted idiots walk into a jewelry shop for a wedding ring.
> 
> ...well, just one...who brought his friends and sort-of daughter. 
> 
> Kim Kim can't handle them.

Kim Kim had been working in her family’s rather small shop since she was ten. It was a small thing but known in the area for their custom pieces. Her family had been in the business for over fifty years since her grandparents emigrated from Korea and had made a name for themselves in that part of the state for their detailed work.

Of course, they couldn’t make  _all_  of their products, but they were well-known for doing a lot of custom pieces, promoting local artwork, and for using their extensive skills (whatever they may be) to ensure that what product they  _did_  sell was the best possible thing for the client.

And Kim Kim had been guilted into working there in every free moment she had. She had expected nothing less once she realized her place in the family hierarchy but it was an effective place to hide from bullies who taunted her for her name – Kimberly Kim, of course, was a very unfortunate name to have and proof that her mother had a truly terrible sense of humor.

In her time working in the small shop, she had seen a lot of types of people come through. There were sad businessmen with hopes in their eyes, the bridezillas who wanted just the right kind of ring, or on occasion, the awkward suitor returning with a rejected ring. She had long since learned to “read” a customer as they walked in and was more than confident in her skills to do so – and if she faltered, her grandmother was always there to correct her.

Rebekah Lee was old but hadn’t seemed to lose much of her wit. She still conducted some of the inspections of the product and all of the delivery men and women knew to fear her like one fears a house with a vicious dog. (Unlike a vicious dog however, Rebekah Lee was easy to outrun.)

Most days she was present in the shop as a surprisingly unobtrusive presence, hiding in a corner with books or needlepoint to occupy her. Her hands hurt too much to work and the needlepoint was really there just to tease her as an old American grandmother that sits and sews, but she was able to occupy unruly children with stories or small crafts which she kept stored in a small cabinet next to her rocking chair.

“ _A cowboy_ ,” she observed as the man walked into the shop with a small entourage of people. The youngest girl had Korean features and Kim Kim wondered to herself if she could understand. She had a wicked grin so perhaps she could. “ _He looks like the Brawny man_ ,” Rebekah Lee continued.

“ _Hush grandmother_ ,” Kim Kim told her with a hooked smile. Her grandmother thumped her cane on the ground and pretended to be upset though they both knew she was far more amused by her granddaughter’s audacity than anything. “What can I do for you today?”

The customer that Kim Kim had now mentally labelled as the Brawny Man smiled awkwardly. “Well I’m…er, nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said awkwardly.

At his side, the girl rolled her eyes. She bounced on her curved prosthetic legs and Kim Kim suppressed a smile at her impatience. “ _He wants to get a ring_ ,” she told Kim Kim boldly in Korean. Her accent was different than the one that Kim Kim was familiar with but she had no issue understanding her. “ _For my dad-uncle_.”

Kim Kim’s brows rose straight to her hairline. The man beside her, a mocha-skinned adolescent with long dreads, looked at her with similar surprise. “What did you say?” he asked cautiously. The last man of their entourage snorted and Kim Kim tried not to stare at him but it was difficult.

Mercifully, Rebekah Lee was silent in her corner. “ _He’s my uncle but he’s listed as my dad_ ,” the girl explained and the Brawny Man scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “ _And Jesse’s my other dad._ ”

“ _You don’t look like him_ ,” Rebekah Lee said and Kim Kim fought to keep herself from burying her face in her hands.

“ _My real dad’s doing life in prison because he was convicted of violating a restraining order and having questionable materials on his computer,_ ” the girl said glibly in the way that only children did. “ _But Jess married dad-uncle to keep me while dad-uncle traveled and now they want to get married for real so he needs the perfect ring_.”

Kim Kim frowned down at the girl and then looked up at the Brawny Man who had turned red. She didn’t think that he understood Korean, but was probably embarrassed by the idea of his sort-of daughter (??) talking so much in a language he couldn’t understand.

“ _That’s weird_ ,” Rebekah Lee decided.

The girl turned and smirked at the old woman. “Ring,” the broken man said in a thick voice. His jaw seemed stiff and though his eyes were bright and intelligent, he sounded slow.

“Yes,” Kim Kim said, trying to recover. But she had done her time and had seen a lot of weird things so this wasn’t entirely new to her. “Do you know his size?”

The Brawny Man glanced suspiciously down at the girl who smiled beatifically up at him. “I’m not sure how they work,” he admitted. “But he’s a chef so I figured that if it doesn’t fit he could and probably would just wear it on a chain around his neck.”

Kim Kim nodded absently. This also wasn’t new to her. “Well, one way to tell is to measure his finger with a ring sizer online. You could also go into a store and measure there, but I guess you want the element of surprise?”

It wasn’t really a question but the Brawny Man nodded anyway. “ _You could measure his!_ ” Rebekah Lee suggested from her corner where she watched them like a hawk. She had once explained to Kim Kim that people-watching in the shop was more interesting to her than any of the daytime dramas she could find on the television.

“Could you measure yours?” the man with the dreads asked the Brawny Man. “Do you know how big his hands are in relation to yours?”

The Brawny Man’s shoulders stiffened and he turned bright red. “Eew,” the broken man said simply.

Kim Kim kept her smile as steady as she could and hoped her blush wasn’t visible.

“More or less,” the Brawny Man said at last. “His knuckle ain’t much larger than mine.”

She tried not to suggest that it wasn’t as the Brawny Man had large hands. The Brawny Man – who introduced himself as Jesse – obligingly held out his right hand (his left was a prosthetic which looked intriguingly sleek, not unlike her brother’s prosthetic leg, and she wondered if it also came from Shimada Industries but that wasn’t a question she could ask him yet) and patiently sat through the measuring process and approved the approximate size of his (hopefully) fiancée-to-be’s fingers.

The girl (Song Hana, as she had introduced herself) went over to chat with Rebekah Lee in Korean while the rest of Jesse’s group hovered nearby. The broken man limped up the waist-high aisles of displays and she didn’t even bother keeping an eye on him – originally she had to make sure he wouldn’t topple over but she watched him very carefully maneuver and decided that he wouldn’t be hitting any of the displays if he could do anything about it.

Now sized, she could steer them more in the direction of the sizes they needed and they peered critically at the rings there. She obligingly pulled out a tray of them to lean over, discussing in hushed tones Jesse’s man’s ability to wear it while he cooked.

Kim Kim learned very quickly that Jesse was quite smitten with his man (he had to be to be marrying him, after all) and was more than happy to talk about him with a relative stranger. It was a bonus, since she could more easily help steer them in the right direction.

Jesse’s man was a chef – he wasn’t sure if he won awards, but he had been featured a few times though he was vague about where. She steered them away from the gaudier rings that would obstruct a chef’s hands and to plainer bands with coatings and metals that would be resistant to the strain of his man’s profession.

As she was about to ask about price, Rebekah Lee called from her corner, “ _Song Hana says to not bring up price at all with him. He has a budget but the rest of them are paying for the ring without him knowing!_ ”

Some romantic crap, of course. It stung her that she couldn’t ask without giving away the plot but she said, “Hush, grandma!” as she was supposed to do. Kim Kim made her apologies which they waved off as expected and they continued. Even knowing what was going on and keeping Jesse distracted while first the broken man and then the man with dreads wandered to the corner with Hana, she wouldn’t have been able to catch on that they were plotting to pay a portion of the ring.

Jesse was understandably picky. He was hesitant to explain exactly why and Kim Kim didn’t push but carefully steered the conversation to safer routes. Did he want something custom? What was his timeline? They could modify the ring, to an extent, for him.

What she thought actually won him over was her insistence that it was a serious decision and that he may need to sleep on it to pick just the right one. The subtle looks of frustration Jesse’s friends shot him were worth it when Jesse himself smiled at her. She suggested that he make an appointment to come back – she’d keep his information down (she emphasized this slightly so his friends would stop glaring at her) and Kim Kim would make sure that Grandfather Kim (really her father, but he acted so old that the name was fitting) would be there to advise him as well.

It was as Jesse was about to leave that he caught sight of some of the rings she had stowed away in her working corner by the front window. What it really was, at least in her opinion, was the gentle glimmer of blue-tinted metal from a previous customer’s custom piece that they had rejected.

Jesse was immediately taken by it – the fold of the metal made it appear that it rippled with navy and silver lines not unlike the bark of a tree or the scalloped pattern that was on a set of hair ribbons that Jesse had gotten his man for Christmas the previous year.

As luck would have it, the ring was just barely past the size they had agreed upon and not out of the boundaries that Kim Kim would consider “safe” for sizing a ring without the second party present. She marked it down with an employee discount just because she could and marked it down again (this time telling him) because it was commissioned by someone else and then rejected – their down payment had covered more than half of the cost of the ring so there wasn’t much left for Jesse to pay.

Nearly two hours after Jesse and his entourage had first walked in, they left with a ring nestled in a box lined with cobalt silk. Rebekah Lee was cackling in her corner with glee though if it was at something real or imaginary, Kim Kim couldn’t tell.

“ _Interesting times_ ,” Rebekah Lee said and Kim Kim rolled her eyes.

She put Jesse the Brawny Man out of her mind and went about her life though she hoped he would come back and tell her the outcome and how he proposed – she and Rebekah Lee liked stories like those.


	7. That time everyone found out they were already married

Ana’s fingers drummed on the table as she regarded the two men so wrapped up in each other that they forgot that they were in the middle of the dining room. It was sickening after seeing them pining after each other for so long but at the same time it was kind of endearing after all they’d been through.

“Gross,” Fareeha grumbled around a mouthful of lasagna.

Glancing at Hana who had taken out her cochlears, Ana tapped the table next to her to get her attention and signed  _slow down_. The ten year-old rolled her eyes but stopped shoveling food into her mouth so quickly. Her cheeks already looked like a chipmunk’s, full to bursting. Not that Ana could fault her - once he had gotten the hang of it, Hanzo’s lasagna was  _to die for_  and made all the better for the inclusion of the herbs Jesse grew for him.

Genji groaned. “You guys are  _disgusting_!” he grumbled. “Jeez, just get married already, yeah?”

“That implies that their grossness will decrease and not  _increase_ ,” Fareeha pointed out. “The whole honeymoon stage, you know? It might get worse.”

Lucio and Bastian choked on their mouthfuls suspiciously and when she turned back to Jesse and Hanzo, she found them pointedly looking in any direction but the table where everyone sat.

“Jesse,” Ana said slowly.

Hanzo ducked into the kitchen when there was a commotion of dishes; a moment later they could hear him scolding Chard. Things began making sense when Jesse carefully didn’t make eye contact with anyone as he went about making a plate for himself and Hanzo.

“Nothing,” he said, a little too quickly.

There was silence from everyone. “John Jesse McCree,” Fareeha growled. “ _Did you get married without telling us?_ ”

Sombra shrieked with laughter that sent half-chewed food flying while Bastian and Lucio continued to laugh and cough as they tried to clear their lungs of the food they had previously been choking on.


	8. Family Meeting: When they found out they were married

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One way but not necessarily the _only_ way it went down.

The silence was awkward. Hanzo held Chard in his lap, the cat smearing himself against Hanzo’s chest and lap in a strangely contorted position as he napped; Pumpkin was nowhere to be seen.

“So,” Jack said slowly. “You’re married.”

Chard sneezed and rolled over, spreading his legs. Gabe groaned. “Does that  _thing_  have to be here?” The cat fixed him with a flat stare and as if understanding Gabe’s words, he shoved one back leg into the air and began licking his balls. “Gross!”

Ana sipped her tea serenely. “If you’re so bothered by it, why are you staring?” Jack asked.

“It’s like a train wreck,” Gabe grumbled. “Too terrible to look away.”

Jesse shifted uncomfortably in his chair and reached out to scratch Chard’s hairless skin. The cat snorted and rolled over, hooking a paw over Jesse’s hand as he stretched out over Hanzo’s lap.

“So you’re  _married_ ,” Jack repeated.

“Yeah,” Jesse said awkwardly. “We are?”

Ana put her tea down. “Are you? You don’t sound so sure.”

“We are,” Hanzo confirmed.

“Since when?” Gabe grumbled, finally able to drag his eyes away from Chard.

Hanzo cocked his head as Jesse blurted, “Which time?”

The silence was infinitely more awkward this time around. “What do you mean ‘ _which time_ ’?” Gabe demanded. At his side, Sombra slipped a hand over his mouth to keep him from shouting even more.

Jesse looked at Hanzo in askance; he raised a brow as if to say,  _you got yourself into this_. Still he gave Jesse’s leg a gentle squeeze and said, “We’ve been married since February.”

“What day?” Ana asked, sipping from her tea again.

“We signed the paperwork in the courthouse on February 12,” Hanzo said. “A friend of my mother’s sped up the finalizing process so it was official – and Jesse was legally eligible to be Hana’s guardian in my stead – only a few days later.”

Ana hummed. “What’s this about ‘which time’?” Jack wanted to know.

“We were only married once,” Hanzo explained. “But we only recently exchanged rings.”

Sombra cocked her head to the side, making her hair flop over the shaved side of her head. Unlike Bastian who had let his hair grow out, Sombra kept parts of her head shaved so that the defined scars from some kind of surgery on her skull drew furrows on her skin. This was dyed, with Genji’s help, bright purple; some of it had already begun fading to pink.

“Then why did he say ‘which time’?” Gabe demanded. Hanzo shrugged.

Jesse blushed and toyed with the ring on his right hand. Brought to their attention, they saw that Hanzo had a new tattoo that matched new enamel detailing on Jesse’s prosthetic hand: a thin red bow tied around their pinkie fingers and over the sides of their hand – if they held their hands clasped, the lines connected as if they were tied together.

“You guys sicken me,” Ana said but there was no real disgust in her voice. She held out her teacup to Hanzo who bowed his head. He shifted Chard into Jesse’s lap – much to Gabe’s disgust – and took the cup and saucer into the kitchen. If he knew why he was being sent for more tea, he gave no sign. She leaned forward when Hanzo had left, gently brushing away the paw that Chard batted at her. “Jesse.”

“No,” her  _habibi_  murmured back just as seriously. “I did it because I wanted to – for him and for Hana.”

Gabe huffed. “I don’t like it,” he said, crossing his brawny arms over his chest. “You’re just letting him use you!”

“No,” Jesse said immediately. “ _No_. It ain’t like tha’, promise.”

It had been years since she had gotten him to speak properly but sometimes it only took the right situation to have him reverting back to his old ways. She supposed that it was just as difficult for her and Fareeha to drop their respective accents so it made sense that Jesse would occasionally revert back.

“Then what  _is_  it like?” Jack asked. “You understand how concerned we are.”

From the look on Jesse’s face, he clearly didn’t but Ana didn’t say anything. Instead Jesse toyed with the hairless cat in his lap. It had taken a long time for everyone to get used to Chard but it made good practice for Ana to knit him sweaters, especially as the weather began to turn cooler. He was as endearing and friendly as he was ugly, she’d give him that much, and didn’t fight it when she dressed him up in her knitted offerings.

He was obedient, too – more obedient than Jesse’s Pumpkin who had to wear a shock collar to keep her out of things she wasn’t supposed to be in. She snapped her fingers and Chard peered at her with one eye. She gestured to the cat to follow her into the kitchen and he obeyed, rolling out of Jesse’s lap and trotting beside her heels.

If only the rest of her children were so well-behaved.

“I figured they could use some private time,” Ana explained though Hanzo didn’t ask. She was pleased to see that he was making tea using the stove rather than the microwave. Not that she expected anything less from an award-winning chef, but then again she had seen his brother eat Stouffer’s frozen mac and cheese with gusto…

“And I figured that you wanted to speak to him without me there,” Hanzo said a little ruefully from his spot. “I’m sure you’re disappointed.”

Ana shrugged though he couldn’t see her. “I think we’re talking about two different kinds of disappointment,” she told him kindly. “ _I’m_  more disappointed that I couldn’t be more a part of it.”

At the stove, Hanzo winced. Steam began rising from the kettle as he began portioning out pinches of tea. She was surprised to find that it was a blend that she didn’t recognize. “From Herbalist Tang,” he explained when she made a curious noise. “An experimental blend that I found I liked. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to hear your thoughts on it.” It was funny to see such a large man being so delicate with tea.

She tried not to laugh when Hanzo jumped when she wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug from behind. He didn’t spill the tea. “For what it’s worth,” she said softly. “I’m happy for you two.” She stepped back, watching the flush rise up the back of Hanzo’s neck and along the shaved sides of his head. “Will you bring the tea out when it’s ready?” she asked and Hanzo nodded without looking at her. “Thank you. Chard?” the cat followed her out of the kitchen as easily as he had done when they walked in together and was rewarded in the dining room with a small treat.


	9. Charred or Chard the Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of Char(re)d the Cat.

“Han,” Jesse said, a pained look on his face. “ _No…_ ”

The…thing…hung complacently from Hanzo’s hands, its hind legs curled demurely over its groin which was a blessing because it wasn’t neutered.

…and it was hairless.

“Yes,” Hanzo said seriously. “You said you _wanted_  children of the four-legged variety.”

Jesse sighed, running his flesh hand through his hair. “Han…I think said of the  _furry_  variety. That…thing…” he shuddered. “Hon, it looks like a shaved ball sack.”

“You would know,” Hanzo replied, much to the discomfort of the kitten’s owner. He scooped it into his arms like one would hold a baby and turned to the woman that had put the kitten up for adoption. She looked very much like she regretted agreeing to meet with them but she still smiled kindly at them. “How much?”

Jesse whined. “ _Han_.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to Jesse. “Hon,” she said gently to Hanzo. “Maybe you should make the decision with your…friend?”

“Husband,” Hanzo corrected absently as he toyed with the cat’s paws. It was complacent enough to bat at his hands gamely; when it “caught” Hanzo’s finger, it brought it to its mouth and licked at it.

Never had Jesse wished so badly for someone to be homophobic and take the cat…thing…away from Hanzo. But the woman was a kind sort and smiled. “Husband,” she repeated sweetly. “Maybe you should ask your husband what he thinks.”

“He thinks he looks like a shaved ball sack,” Hanzo pointed out. “He made it very clear what he thought of him.”

The woman winced. “Yes, but I’d rather not cause a break in a marriage over a cat,” she pointed out. “And I’d hate to get this poor guy’s hopes up that he’d find his forever home.”

Jesse could never get used to that phrase. “Forever home”. It made sense and was kind of sweet but at the same time he thought it was kind of weird…but that was just him.

Startled, Hanzo looked back at Jesse. He groaned. “Ma’am,” he said kindly to the woman. “Y’ mind if we have some people-talk? Guy talk? Like…me and my husband?” It still felt weird to call Hanzo his husband but it was a good kind of weird that sent thrills up and down his spine.

The woman smiled and held out her hands for the cat which Hanzo very reluctantly handed back to her. “You can go in the dining room over there,” she said, pointing to the room in question. “Just give a holler if you need me.” Murmuring to the cat, she lumbered off to the couch and sat down with a groan. The kitten curled up on her ample belly and closed its eyes as if to nap.

Hanzo looked so honestly concerned that Jesse had to tug him into a tight hug. “Now don’t think that, Han,” he murmured. “If you want ‘im, get ‘im. I’m just…not on board with the whole ‘hairless’ thing. I’m serious when I say it looks like a shaved ball sack.”

“So you’ve said,” Hanzo muttered into his chest. “I just…”

Jesse tipped his head up and gave him a soft kiss. “It seems like a sweetheart,” he said. “I’m just…not confident I can hold it without being disturbed. But…if you want it…it’s yours. And I’ll support you and…it…I’ll get used to it eventually. But darlin’…never worry that I’ll make you give it up. That ain’t happening.”

Hanzo searched his eyes before gently kissing the painted thread around Jesse’s left pinkie. “I like him.” While it was relieving to hear – they had searched seemingly hundreds of shelters and ads for cats that met Hanzo’s apparently strict standards – Jesse wasn’t sure he really liked this particular cat.

“Then let’s get him.”

His husband (!!) looked so pleasantly surprised and Jesse received a truly warm kiss in thanks. It made him feel almost guilty for already hating the hairless monstrosity.

When Hanzo told the owner-breeder of the kitten that he’d take it, Jesse got a truly pitying look from her husband. Great.

* * *

“ _Damn_ ,” Fareeha said as the kitten explored the common room before their weekly  _Chopped_  marathon.

Angela peered at it. “It’s _ugly_ ,” she said and wrinkled her nose. “Do  _all_ cats have that much skin? And where are its whiskers?”

As if protesting her words, the cat gave a raspy meow.

“Yeah,” Fareeha agreed. “It’s ugly and… _hermano_ …you’re _so_  whipped.”

Zarya tucked her legs up on her couch when the cat wandered her way. “Is unnatural.”

The doors slammed open and Rein, still a little dirty from work in the Diner, stumbled in. “I heard Hanzo’s cat was here!” he boomed. The cat in question had frozen in terror, its bright blue eyes wide as it processed the sudden noise.

“Yeah,” Jesse said as neutrally as he could. “Close the door so it doesn’t run out.”

The big man scrambled to obey, nearly smashing Ana in the process but she was quick and managed to avoid death that day. “Where is it?” Rein asked excitedly. “What kind of cat is it?”

“Looks like shaved nuts,” Zarya said flatly, eyeing the creature where it crouched under the coffee table.

Rein’s excited face froze awkwardly. “What?”

Hana giggled where she was curled up with Jesse. Bastian occupied the other side of the couch with a safe distance so Hanzo could sit beside his husband; Lucio was perched on the arm, frowning down at the cat.

Everyone’s reaction to the cat, in Jesse’s opinion, were absolutely priceless. Rein’s was no exception – his excited face fell immediately upon seeing the wretched creature. “Where is that cat’s fur?” he asked flatly.

“It doesn’t have any,” Jesse said, running a hand over his face tiredly. Hana giggled.

“ _Actually,_ ” Sombra corrected, once more startling everyone with not only her presence but her willingness to talk. “They  _do_  have fur, it’s just very fine. They still can and do create dander but it’s just at a much-reduced rate and volume – why they can be called hypoallergenic.”

They all frowned at her. It was the longest she had spoken in a long time and most of the time no one knew what to do with her when she  _did_  speak or laugh. But where Sombra was, Gabe couldn’t be too far away.

“How?” Bastian asked curiously.

Sombra shrugged as Gabe entered the common area. Seeing the cat – which had begun to emerge from the table, he turned around and walked out without a word. Giggling, Sombra heckled him in Spanish as she followed. Some of her suggestions were that he should knit The Cat clothes so it wouldn’t be too cold.

It suddenly occurred to Jesse that he had no idea how to take care of it.

_Is this what being a parent feels like?_  He signed to Hana and Bastian who turned to look at him when he began signing.  _Being terrified when you realize you have no idea how to take care of another life?_  Hana laughed and said nothing; Bastian shrugged solemnly though his clear eyes were amused.

Ana was peering down at The Cat which had slowly begun approaching her. “It looks so worried,” she said with a laugh, running a careful finger over the wrinkles between its ears. It butted its head into hers, trying to solicit more pets which she obliged. She laughed again. “It’s so soft! You should feel it!”

_“Like shaved nuts!”_  Zarya roared, outraged, from where she was curled up. Angela and Fareeha giggled and joined her there.

Jack, who had just opened the door, paused. “ _What_?”

“Don’t ask,” Jesse told him tiredly. “She’s talking about The Cat.”

The man visibly hesitated. “You guys finally found one?”

Hana giggled. “Yes!”

“Does he have a name?”

It suddenly occurred to Jesse that he had absolutely no idea if Hanzo had named The Thing. “We can ask Han,” he said when everyone turned to look at him.

The cat grunted when it was picked up in Rein’s massive hands but didn’t struggle like Jesse half-expected it to. “He’s so tiny!” Rein exclaimed.

“Isn’t he soft?” Ana asked, wiggling her finger in the cat’s face. He batted at it without his claws and went limp in Rein’s hands.

Jack leaned over the couch by Jesse. “That… _thing_ …is a cat?”

“Yup!” Hana said a little too-loudly.

Rein’s booming laughter echoed. “ _Shaved nut sack!_ ” Zarya roared when he tried to hand the cat to her.

“Oh!” Ana tsked. “Just hold him! Or touch him!”

Zarya didn’t look amused as he was dangled into her space. The cat’s legs were extended as he tried to keep his balance. She tilted her head all the way back in an effort to not look at the creature. “I feel like I’m violating him,” Angela said faintly, also looking anywhere but the creature being dangled in front of them.

The residents of that couch were saved by Hanzo’s return. What exactly he thought when he saw Zarya, Angela, and Fareeha cowering away from the cat which was being dangled over them by Rein, Jesse couldn’t be sure, but he seemed pleased enough that not only were they interacting with the wretched thing, but that Hana looked happy.

Jesse collected a kiss from him as he moved past and scooped the poor animal out of Rein’s massive hands. It met Jesse’s eyes over Hanzo’s shoulder and he tried not to laugh at how utterly relieved it seemed.

“He’s so cute,” Ana said and Jesse made gagging faces at Zarya, Angela, and Fareeha who nodded in agreement. “Does he have a name yet?”

* * *

Jesse’s couch was becoming crowded but privately he thought it was strange to learn after five-odd years of sitting on the same couch in the same spot that there was a recliner chair built in, but it worked in his favor because it meant that not only could Hana, Bastian, and Lucio all sit on the couch with him, but he could also cuddle with Hanzo.

Except now he cuddled with Hanzo, who sat between his legs with his back against Jesse’s chest, and Charred, the hairless cat.

Ugh.

The cat, despite still being rather young, was very mild-mannered which was nice. It didn’t run around or seem to get sick of being in one place for so long but simply seemed content to sit on Hanzo’s lap and accept scritches.

Despite Jesse’s own dislike of the ghastly thing, he loved the smile it brought to Hanzo’s face.

Worse, the thing was  _friendly_  and tried to solicit pets and scritches. Fareeha, Zarya, and Jesse were the only ones so far holding out. Angela was a little disturbed by the sensation but would occasionally pet Charred though she privately admitted that she felt bad that it was named such a depressing name.

But he was more Hanzo’s baby than Jesse’s so he really couldn’t protest the name so much but it really was rather morbid. As Sombra (and his previous owner had) explained, the strange grey-black splotches over Charred’s back were from the color of his nearly-invisible fur. If it had been longer, he’d be white with black or grey splotches but now he was a strange shade of fleshy pink with big ash-colored spots.

More than his unfortunately morbid name, Jesse felt almost bad –  _almost_ – for not giving Charred the scritches he obviously wanted from him. He was a very well-behaved cat when asking, patting the leg or arm of a person with his claws retracted and trying his best to plead with his wrinkly face.

“Looks like E.T.,” Zarya said flatly when Charred tried to solicit pets from her. “Like E.T. had baby with shaved ball sack. No.”

Charred was endearing, Jesse had to give him that. Once he got used to his…unfortunate…features he could almost find Charred cute.

He just couldn’t bring himself to actually  _touch_  him which made it hard when Charred tried his best to endear himself to Jesse.

He’d wind around Jesse’s legs when he fed him in the morning (something he volunteered to do despite Hanzo’s insistence that he could), would try to rub against Jesse and get his attention as much as press up against him with a cute little mew. Jesse always felt bad nudging the cat away with a socked foot but he just couldn’t deal with the thing.

It was insufferably cute though, to see the little knitted clothes that Ana made for him. Unsurprisingly with no fur to keep him warm, Charred needed some assistance. If he transported the cat between the Barracks and Base, Hanzo tucked him in a hoodie or in his coat with him.

Though Gabe thought Charred was disgusting, he created a lined pouch that looked like a messenger bag that would keep the cat warm while he was outside. He shrieked outright when Charred tried to rub against him, seemingly in thanks.

Two weeks after Charred came to the farm, they learned that his name was actually Chard.

Like the vegetable, which turned out to be one of Hanzo’s favorites, especially to cook with. Like the rainbow chard he had on his tattoo on his right arm.

_Chard,_  not Charred, like he was crispy.

Huh.

For his part, Hanzo was no stranger to Jesse’s thoughts on Chard. (And Zarya’s…and Fareeha’s…and Gabe’s. Really, he could go on.) He was pleased that Jesse kept his promise – not that he doubted he would – to  _not mind_ Chard’s presence. He volunteered to feed him, would bring back toys or treats, but he still staunchly refused to touch him directly.

At first Hanzo was hurt because he at least enjoyed the feel of Chard’s fuzzy skin and he and Ana often played with the cat’s wrinkled forehead and scraggly whiskers. Yes, his junk was disturbing, but they got used to it.

(Hanzo, did, at least. He could still hear the cries of disgust when Chard flipped his tail up in a friendly greeting and treated everyone to an eyeful.)

Still, he was beginning to worry about Jesse’s reticence.

He need not have worried because nearly a full month after adopting Chard, he found the two of them napping in a golden beam of sunlight in their room. Jesse was cradling the majority of Chard’s body with his whole arm and the stump of his other. The cat’s head was tucked into the crook of his neck and one of his paws rested on the bared flesh of his collarbone through the open collar of his flannel.

From the flick of Chard’s ears as he unlocked his phone, he knew Hanzo was there but Jesse didn’t stir as he snapped a few quick pictures. Chard grunted and shifted and Jesse’s hands tightened on him instinctively before relaxing as the cat settled again.

Hanzo managed to get a few more pictures before Jesse peeked his eyes open. He smiled sleepily at Hanzo and tipped his head back for a kiss.

His thumb rubbed gently along Chard’s lower back where he cradled him gently. “L’ke ‘a shaved ball sack,” he said sleepily. It was almost smug and it was the tone that got Hanzo.

The startled burst of laughter from Hanzo startled Chard enough that he leaped to his feet and raced away. Even Jesse agreed as Hanzo cleaned them with hydrogen peroxide with Chard watching them reproachfully from the doorway that the lines of scratches over his chest were almost worth it.

* * *

**Fun facts about Sphynx (”hairless”) cats I learned from my aunty (and also some things about Chard):**

  * **As Sombra mentioned, they _do_  actually have fur, it’s just really short. Due to fluctuations in their hormones, the mama cats sometimes grow fur which is surprisingly soft. **
    * **My aunty’s breeding female’s fur was tight and swirly for lack of a better word. It wasn’t quite curly but just the way it grew it made it look wavy.**
    * **Even after she had weaned her kittens, she kept her fur. Not sure what happened there but whatever.**
    * **The breeding female was more or less pure evil. She was the queen of the house and was absolutely enamored with my aunty.**
  * **They do actually have whiskers and “eyebrows” even if it doesn’t appear that they do - they just grow in so fine and brittle that they break off.**
  * **Chard looks kind of like[this](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fvetstreet.brightspotcdn.com%2Fdims4%2Fdefault%2F02bd838%2F2147483647%2Fthumbnail%2F645x380%2Fquality%2F90%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fvetstreet-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%252Fa3%252F767b00a33511e087a80050568d634f%252Ffile%252FSphynx-4-645mk062211.jpg&t=ZTJkZDg1YjVhZDIwNGUwY2VkY2FlYzEwZThkOTRjNjNiNjViNzExMyx5b0F0UDBraQ%3D%3D&b=t%3A7etQt34eE_SelRUtc0l7ew&p=https%3A%2F%2Fclassywastelandbread.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167285608591%2Fcharred-or-chard-the-cat&m=1). His coloration is based off of one of my aunty’s cats and she told me recently that she had initially considered naming him “Charred” but the rest of his family’s names ended in an “O” sound so she couldn’t. **
    * **He has blue eyes.**
    * **His attitude is very friendly and relatively laid back.**
    * **Some cats are very amenable to training due to breeding, natural aptitude, and/or their general demeanor. Chard is definitely one of those cats. My cat in RL is not.**



 


	10. Li Xuan-Feng: Shimada-sama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Li Xuan-Feng only wants to enjoy their tea.
> 
> Shimada- _sama_ is nervous and asks their opinion of his son.

Li Xuan-Feng sipped serenely their tea.

“What did you think?” Shimada- _sama_  asked.

They peeked an eye open at their employer and then opened the other when they realized how honestly concerned he looked. “About what?” they asked, biting back the first sarcastic reply that came to their lips.

“About…Hanzo.”

Li Xuan-Feng put their cup of tea down and poured another for Shimada- _sama_. They made him a small plate of food as well from the neat little pile they had prepared earlier. Shimada- _sama_  thought it was silly in an endearing way but when push came to shove and a British investor was there, he and Yamada- _sama_  asked them to make the tea sandwiches instead of ordering out.

But though they (fondly) teased Li Xuan-Feng, even their palates, more used to both traditional and modern Japanese tastes, very much appreciated the little tea sandwiches.

Li Xuan-Feng added a few of the sandwiches with lox and cream cheese with capers, knowing that Shimada- _sama_  was fond of the little bite of the smoked/salted fish – a product of working in a fishing village near the sea. They gestured for him to sit at the table and Shimada- _sama_  did, thanking them quietly for the tea and sandwiches.

“What about Hanzo?” Li Xuan-Feng asked.

Their employer glanced up at them. “Just…in general.”

Li Xuan-Feng hummed as they sipped their tea. “He’s an idiot,” they said simply but smiled kindly at Shimada- _sama_  when he looked up at them in shock at their audacity and words. “But he will soon learn this for himself.” They reached over boldly and tapped Shimada- _sama_ ’s wrist gently. “He went  _searching_  for happiness when it was right there in front of him.  _That_  is why he’s an idiot.”

Mollified, Shimada- _sama_  nodded his head and took a bite of the first sandwich. “I don’t understand your fascination with this…”

“Cream cheese?” Li Xuan-Feng asked, amused. “I don’t either. On its own I absolutely hate it but mixed with herbs or capers, it can be quite delightful. I’ve heard of a few places that mix fruit into it to put on bagels.”

Shimada- _sama_  grunted and Li Xuan-Feng hid a smile behind another sip of tea. He had a strange love-hate relationship with bagels, especially after Aimi- _sama_ had brought back a habit of eating them in the morning. She liked cinnamon-raisin but Li Xuan-Feng was partial to a good cheddar one which, unfortunately, was rather difficult to come by unless they made it themselves.

Hmm. Something to think about.

“Have you received the notices from the bio-mechanical department?” Shimada- _sama_  asked instead.

“Which one, the one about the potential virus in the system or the issue they’re having with the alloy and structure of the newest models?”

Shimada- _sama_  made a face that wasn’t from a bad bite of sandwich. “Did anyone in R&D have anything to say?”

“Nothing worth your attention,” Li Xuan-Feng said breezily. “Short of visiting there myself which I may do anyway, it was just a bunch of meaningless words that had no more value than a fart.”

Li Xuan-Feng was momentarily concerned that they would be the reason for the death of the head of the Shimada Empire as he choked on the tea he was sipping but relaxed when it seemed like no action was required. “When are you planning on visiting?” Shimada- _sama_  croaked as he sipped more cautiously at the tea again and tried to catch his breath.

They talked business for a few more minutes before the vein of their conversation was steered back toward Hanzo.

“Mark my words,” Li Xuan-Feng told Shimada- _sama_  solemnly. “You’ll have a new son in a year’s time once Hanzo gets his head out of his ass, to use an American phrase.”

Shimada- _sama_  sighed. “Aimi tells me I’m being too hard on him.”

Li Xuan-Feng snorted and poured another cup of tea – first Shimada- _sama,_ their elder, and then one for themselves. “ _I_  think you’re not being hard enough but if you take into account how much worse he’s making himself feel then you are being too difficult. That boy’s an idiot, I told you, Shimada- _sama_. Sometimes you need to spell it out for idiots.”

“Am I ever glad that you don’t sharpen your tongue on me,” Shimada- _sama_ muttered though his gaze was fond.

They smiled sweetly at Shimada- _sama_. “Only when you need it.”

“Your tongue is as stinging as a whip,” Shimada- _sama_  lamented teasingly.

“Some people are into that.”

For the second time in only a handful of minutes, Li Xuan-Feng worried that they would be the one to kill Shimada- _sama_. Cause of death: asphyxiation from a tea sandwich.

Li Xuan-Feng, watching their friend and boss to make sure no assistance (medical or otherwise) was needed, mused that there were worse ways to die.

But it would make for an interesting story.


	11. Li Xuan-Feng: Aimi-sama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Li Xuan-Feng only wants to enjoy their tea.
> 
> Aimi- _sama_ interrupts to ask for their help planning a wedding. 
> 
> "Ask" is a very strong word.

Li Xuan-Feng sipped their tea and sighed to themselves when they heard someone step in front of them.

“I need your assistance,” Aimi- _sama_  said as they opened their eyes.

Trying not to roll their eyes – it seems like they’d  _never_  be able to enjoy a soothing cup of tea on their own – they set out a cup of tea for Aimi- _sama_  and poured it. “I am at your service, Aimi- _sama_.”

“I hear the sarcasm in your voice,” the older woman said though despite her words it was fond. “I raised Genji, remember?”

“And not to speak ill of Aimi- _sama_ ’s parenting skills, but clearly  _something_  went wrong there.”

Aimi- _sama_  laughed as they intended her to and accepted the mug of tea they placed in front of her. Like her eldest son, she had a debilitating sweet tooth and so Li Xuan-Feng made a small plate of tea cookies for her which he also served.

They sat in comfortable silence as they drank their tea. It took some time for Aimi- _sama_  to work up the courage, it seemed, to actually ask them for what she wanted, so they enjoyed the quiet while they could and serenely sipped their tea. The tea itself wasn’t a particularly good blend, they had been dismayed to learn, and it was barely passable to their more…picky palate.

Clearly Aimi- _sama_ didn’t have such a sophisticated taste, at least for tea, for she said a moment later, “This is really good tea. Where did you get it?”

“I detest it,” Li Xuan-Feng told her mildly. “You are welcome to have it.”

Aimi _-sama_  giggled behind a hand. “Surely you don’t find it  _too_  terrible.”

“Please take it; I fear that if you do not, I will douse it in petrol, light it on fire, and dance barefoot in the ashes to celebrate the destruction of something that is such an insult to good tea.”

They should really be more careful about their word choice, especially given the age of their employers. Aimi- _sama_  seemed so fragile – much more so than Shimada- _sama_ , though they knew that she had just as much iron in her as her husband. Patiently, they waited for her to stop coughing and handed her a glass of water when she was ready for it. “Should I call for emergency medical services?”

Aimi- _sama_  shot them a crude American gesture that made them smile. “I will take the tea, then, and save it from your wrath,” she told them, wiping her mouth demurely. “Thank you for offering it.”

They shrugged. “Now,” they said after they had pushed the small metal canister toward her pointedly. “How may I be of service?”

Intrigued, they watched as Aimi- _sama_  fidgeted – _fidgeted!_  Surely it  _must_  be something interesting. Pulling out a folded piece of paper from the wide pocket of her  _hakama_ , she slid it toward Li Xuan-Feng. “My boys are married,” she said.

_Oh._

That…

That was terrible.

It was the worst news they had heard in a long time.

Li Xuan-Feng hoped that their reluctance didn’t show on their face. If it did, Aimi- _sama_  gave no sign of it, which was a relief.

“They need to have a proper wedding,” Aimi- _sama_  said, just as they had feared.

“I had wondered why you were dressed as a  _miko,_ ” they admitted. “You don’t typically do so unless there is a festival.”

Almost self-conscious, Aimi- _sama_  smoothed over the wide sleeves of her  _haori_ before letting her hands fall into her lap. “I…I would not be able to preside over their wedding but I had wanted to get into the feel of it.”

It was terrible.

Those poor things didn’t know what can of worms they were opening.

Li Xuan-Feng glanced at the page. It was an email from “AnaAmari@JacksFarm.com”. They did their best to hide a smile – this Ana Amari was just as upset as Aimi- _sama_  that those two idiots hadn’t told them that they were married.

“Truly terrible,” Li Xuan-Feng said mildly as they reread the email. They pulled out their tablet, which made Aimi- _sama_  stare. “Is something wrong?”

“ _Where did you have that?_ ” she asked incredulously, going so far as to lean down and peer beneath the low table to see where they may have hidden it.

Li Xuan-Feng shrugged. “If I can’t…ah… _whip out_  my tablet at any given time, then what kind of personal assistant would I be?”

Aimi- _sama_  squinted suspiciously at him. “Did you just quote an anime at me?”

“I believe it may technically have started with a manga,” Li Xuan-Feng replied as they queued up calendars and assorted wedding planning tabs.

Frustrated, Aimi- _sama_  waved her hands as if to dispel smoke. “Don’t distract me,” she said a bit sternly but still there was a hint of fondness in her words…at least for now. They knew better than to push their luck too hard.

Regardless, they knew that they were in for…a lot. Aimi- _sama_  had that look in her eyes and Li Xuan-Feng began to rearrange their schedules – noted on four different calendars – and create a new one solely for the planning of this wedding. They delegated everything they could and marked in red what they couldn’t before settling with an expectant look at Aimi- _sama_.

“Let’s begin,” they said, hoping that they didn’t sound as reluctant as they felt.

* * *

When they got their measurements – sent by the ever-growing email chain of participants from America – they may or may not have begun commissioning very traditional kimono for Jesse and Hanzo in addition to the obvious choice of  _haori_ and  _hakama_.

And maybe also very short silk  _furisode_ from a fetish site. 

A little cross-dressing never hurt anyone and they looked forward to getting their revenge when those two idiots opened the garment boxes in their fitting rooms.


	12. Li Xuan-Feng: Hana-chan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Li Xuan-Feng only wants to enjoy their tea.
> 
> Hana- _chan_ wants to have girl-time.

Li Xuan-Feng was bringing the cup of tea to their lips when Hana- _chan_  burst into the living area.

For a moment they were frozen at an impasse, staring at each other. Then, not unlike a spastic cat, Hana- _chan_  bolted out of the room and to the kitchen, returning with a glass mug of almond milk. She bowed at the edge of Li Xuan-Feng’s short table, nearly spilling her drink.

It was a sloppy bow but it served its purpose and she wasn’t in Japan – or anywhere really – long enough to need it to be perfect. “ _May I join you?_ ” she asked in accented Japanese. “ _You don’t need to worry about me because I have my own drink. I would just like to enjoy your company._ ”

“ _Liar_ ,” Li Xuan-Feng murmured absently and she broke her bow to pout at them. “ _But feel free to sit with me until you believe it polite enough to ask what you want of me_.”

Hana- _chan_  blushed and set down her mug before sitting in passable  _seiza_ despite her prosthetics. They were intrigued to see this, as the models she tended to use were the spring models. Perhaps Shimada- _sama_  had convinced her to speak with R&D about testing out other types.

They made a mental note to look into it later.

To her credit, she managed to wait through three cups of tea – one of which they shared with her once she had drank enough of her almond milk to not completely dilute the subtle hints of mango and raspberry.

They made another mental note to see if they could find a similar tea and pick Hanzo’s brain to see where he had gotten it. For all it was from a large chain store in America it was quite lovely.

“ _Speak_ ,” Li Xuan-Feng advised her. “ _I fear that if you wait any longer you will burst._ ”

Hana- _chan_  blushed and tried another bow that made her wince – the prosthetics probably dug into her stumps. “ _I want you to teach me about makeup,_ ” she blurted and then slapped her hands over her mouth.

“ _How old are you?_ ” Li Xuan-Feng asked although they already know. “ _Aren’t you a little young to be wearing makeup?_ ”

The eleven year-old’s chin jutted out stubbornly. If she wasn’t Korean through-and-through and everyone hadn’t insisted that Hanzo was absolutely  _not_ her father (apparently a common misconception), Li Xuan-Feng would have thought she was a Shimada. But some behaviors and temperaments were learned, after all.

“I’m eleven,” she challenged in English. “ _How old were_ you  _when you first learned how to do makeup?_ ” she muttered in Korean.

Li Xuan-Feng cocked their head to the side. “I was eleven,” they said in English.

“And how old are you now?” she taunted.

It had never particularly bothered them, so they said, “Eleven.” When Hana-chan scowled at them, they smirked. “Plus nearly three decades.”

She wrinkled her nose, still tired enough to be easily distracted. “You’re _old!_ ”

Li Xuan-Feng snorted. “A fine way to convince me to give in to your demands.” For a moment, Hana-chan looked comically horrified and her hands covered her mouth. “And if your fathers come after me for teaching their baby girl about makeup?”

Looking down, Hana- _chan_  blushed cutely. “ _No one at the Farm can teach me_ ,” she mumbled in passable German.

“ _There is an amazing invention called YouTube,_ ” Li Xuan-Feng pointed out in the same language. “ _Also your pronunciations are a little off. Watch the accents on the vowels and your consonants need to be sharper – hard enough to cut, my teacher used to tell me_.”

Hana-chan’s blush burned brighter. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I just…”

“I’m not saying I won’t,” Li Xuan-Feng told her kindly as they took another sip of tea. “I’m just thinking of where to begin.”

The destruction of not only their short tea table but also their nice teapot and cups was averted only because the toes of Hana _-chan_ ’s prosthetics caught on the decorative pillow she had been sitting on so she had not been able to launch herself at Li Xuan-Feng in a flying hug.

It started simple, much to Hana- _chan_ ’s frustration: a simple two lines done in brown eyeliner pencil on her cheeks.

“Practice, practice, practice,” Li Xuan-Feng told her sternly when they passed the small kit to her: two eyeliner pencils, a sharpening box, a sleeve of flattened cotton pads, and liquid makeup remover. “You start off small, with balance. Before you start on your face, you start on paper.”

They showed them with a crayon on a small Shimada Industries notepad. Two sets of two lines, each the same size, perfectly parallel or close enough that a difference couldn’t easily be seen.

“I don’t get it,” Hana- _chan_  complained.

Patiently, they pointed to the paper. “You practice on paper to draw flat parallel lines. You learn to see how you need to adjust your hands and pen,” they shook the crayon pointedly, “to get the desired effect. You move on to your face to make the same parallel lines so you know how to draw lines that appear flat on curved surfaces. Once you can consistently do this, I will teach you more.”

Though she clearly didn’t like it, Hana- _chan_  bowed her head and accepted it and they ruffled her hair. It took five tries for her to get lines that are parallel enough to pass Li Xuan-Feng’s critical inspection.

The action on her face took three times as many tries and just as many round cotton pads soaked in makeup remover. Just as she was beginning to get frustrated, her cheeks bright red from rubbing them and her eyes a little too-bright, she made two perfect lines.

The smile she sent toward Li Xuan-Feng was brilliant and they let her tackle them in a flying hug.

At first her fathers didn’t seem to know what to make of the four innocent lines on her face but they ultimately ignored them. “ _Men_ ,” they teased, rolling their eyes when Hana- _chan_  told them about it.

Two days later, they changed it to angled lines, then two days after that it moved on to shapes. Hana- _chan_  decided that she liked the look of triangles like whiskers on her face and by then she had gone through the entire first pencil.

As a reward, Li Xuan-Feng took her to a nice makeup store to get more colors and other types of makeup that she wanted to learn about. John Jesse McCree and Hanzo looked resigned and the cowboy outright looked ready to cry in fatherly pride when they returned.

Aimi- _sama_  snorted into her evening tea as they watched their nightly soap operas. John Jesse McCree and Hanzo sat with Hana- _chan_  stretched across their laps without her prosthetics on. They fussed over her, John Jesse McCree mumbled tearily about his little baby growing up; Hanzo looked just as teary to hear his husband say that and poor Hana- _chan_  just looked uncomfortable.

“ _Men are dumb_ ,” Aimi _-sama_  told Li Xuan-Feng who rolled their eyes in agreement. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:
> 
> -This is how my mom apparently learned how to do her makeup. I thought it was very much like D.Va's canon war paint.
> 
> -Hana is on her way to becoming a polyglot. She learned a few words and a few lullabies in Yoruba from Orisa, a few words in German from Rein and Angela, is of course fluent in Korean, Japanese, and English, and is beginning to pick up Spanish, much to Sombra’s distress.
> 
> -Li Xuan-Feng is also a polyglot. They have a degree in linguistics and used that to apply themselves to learning as many languages as possible to be of as much use to Shimada-sama as possible. Since he doesn’t “tour” as a proper CEO, they don’t use it as much but they try to maintain all of their languages as much as possible, especially the ones their companies has strongest ties with. 
> 
> -Li Xuan-Feng refers to Jesse as “John Jesse McCree” or “Mr. McCree” when speaking directly to him because they have no reference point for what he wants them to call him.


	13. Li Xuan-Feng: John Jesse McCree (1/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Li Xuan-Feng only wants to enjoy their tea.
> 
> John Jesse McCree just wants some diner food.

Li Xuan-Feng was just wrapping their fingers around their cup of tea when the cowboy poked his head into the living room. A small part of them wanted to fling the cup at him but not only was that unbecoming, but then they’d be down a lovely porcelain cup.

“Um…hi,” John Jesse McCree said, shuffling cautiously into the room. “Uh…you speak English?”

They swallowed back the part of them that wanted to respond in German and instead smiled. “I do. How may I assist you, Mr. McCree?”

The other man swallowed and shifted nervously. “Um…I was jus’ wonderin’ if you got any recommendations o’ places t’ get breakfast.”

“What kind of breakfast are you looking for?” Li Xuan-Feng asked, already bringing up places in the area in his mind’s eye.

Strangely enough, John Jesse McCree seemed surprised. “Oh…um…I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. “Got any diners nearby?”

Aimi- _sama_  had asked the same thing when she had returned. Li Xuan-Feng would never understand the appeal of diners and their greasy food, preferring a nice bowl of rice and  _miso_  and maybe a nice omelet with gravy and chives. Or a bagel. Did he want that? Did he want a bakery instead?

No, they decided after peering at the American as they thought. He wants a  _diner_.

“Diners in Japan are different than what you’d encounter in America,” they said thoughtfully. “What kind of food did you want? It would be easier to find that rather than direct you to the nearest eatery.”

John Jesse McCree looked pained. “Um, I don’t know just…some eggs and sausage I guess. Home fries. Diner food.”

With a last mournful look at their tea, they pushed themselves to their feet. “There is a nice place nearby that makes omelets,” they said, half-hoping that the suggestion would appease the American but knowing that it would be insufficient. “They’re served with fried rice, gravy, and chives.”

It was endearing. The American was too polite to say that it wasn’t  _quite_  what he wanted but the hesitant expression on his face said it all. Li Xuan-Feng chuckled and scooped up their apron from where it hung. “Oh no, ma’am,” he said quickly. “You don’t gotta-”

“I’ve been told that I have a…’mean way’ with home fries,” Li Xuan-Feng told John Jesse McCree as they tied their hair back briskly. “It will not be as fast as a diner because I don’t have everything prepped, but I can have it ready in about…” they checked the time on their watch as they pulled it off. “Half an hour. Is that acceptable?”

The American clearly wasn’t sure how to respond. “I don’t wanna inconvenience you none…”

“No bother,” Li Xuan-Feng said though they thought of their tea, tragically cooling on their short table in the corner. “Shimada- _sama_  asked me to stay behind today and make sure that you and Hanzo were well-settled. Did you sleep well?”

Curious, John Jesse McCree peered at them. “I’m sorry,” he said at last with an explosive sigh. “I musta been out of it more than I thought last night.”

“You were quite jet-lagged,” Li Xuan-Feng said absently as they found the potatoes in the cupboard and began peeling them. “Would you like some coffee? I made some cold-brew a few days ago in anticipation of your arrival.”

The American blinked. “What’s cold brew?”

He flinched when first the side door and then the inner _shoji_ door slammed open; Li Xuan-Feng only lifted their arms higher when Hana- _chan_  slammed into their side. “The peacocks are after me!”

Looking over her shoulder, Li Xuan-Feng put down the potato in their hand and quickly moved to close the doors before the demon birds could get into the house. The peahen in the doorway eyed them with her soulless beady eyes but backed up when they flapped a hand at her and glared as the door was shut in her face.

Back in the kitchen, Hana- _chan_  was peering at the potatoes. They were relieved to see that she didn’t seem inclined to actually  _touch_ anything in the kitchen and when Li Xuan-Feng returned to their place, she looped her little arms around their waist.

“Can I help, LXF?” Hana- _chan_  asked excitedly.

Li Xuan-Feng smiled. “How about you start scrambling some eggs?”

Squealing, Hana _-chan_  ran off to the pantry. “LXF?” John Jesse McCree asked when Hana-chan was out of earshot.

“That’s what she calls me,” they explained. “How do you prefer your home fries? Cubed? Or sliced? And how do you want your eggs?”

John Jesse McCree blinked. “Oh, it don’t matter none to me, ma’am.”

Nodding, Li Xuan-Feng pulled out a chef’s knife and briskly began cubing the potatoes. They added zucchini and peppers, which Hana- _chan_  brought from the pantry without being asked. Belatedly they remembered that they had promised the American coffee and poured out a glass mug of cold brewed coffee – something Hanzo had grown fond of during one of his last visits – for him.

It was relatively quiet in the kitchen while Li Xuan-Feng cooked, the only sounds coming from Hana- _chan_  who hummed quietly to herself while she scrambled eggs as requested. Li Xuan-Feng found a few different sausages in the refrigerator as well as some bacon.

“Is Hanzo awake?” they asked as they began grilling the meats on the stove.

“Naw,” John Jesse McCree said. “Thought I’d let him sleep in. The flight over killed him.”

Li Xuan-Feng glanced out of the kitchen window and sighed. “Hana- _chan_ , will you get the door, please?”

The girl scrambled for the door and hauled it open a moment before Hanami-chan began knocking. For such a small thing, she could knock hard and Li Xuan-Feng didn’t want to have to repair or replace the door again.

“LXF!” Hanami-chan exclaimed as she poked her head into the kitchen.

“Not you too,” Li Xuan-Feng said with mock disgust. They smiled. “Good morning. Will you join us for breakfast?”

Hanami-chan waved it off. “No thanks, I’m just here to see Hanzo and Jesse.”

“What about  _me_?” Hana-chan complained.

Shaking their head, Li Xuan-Feng took the bowl of eggs from Hana-chan and poured it into a pan; with the other hand they flipped the bacon and sausages. “You interrupted their tea time!” Hanami-chan exclaimed. “Li Xuan-Feng!”

“Don’t worry about it,” they said. “This is merely another facet of my job and tea times are minor indulgences.”

But they  _had_  been looking forward to that particular blend of tea. Hanzo had brought it back for them, a mixed fruit blend from a large chain of stores that Li Xuan-Feng had heard of but had never visited when they were in America.

And it was the first time that they had been able to use the new tea set that Yamada- _sama_  had bought them from his business trip to visit investors in Shanghai. It was a lovely thing, even the cardboard box it came in – lined in soft yellow silk, it had such a beautiful contrast against the red porcelain. As a joke (or so they assumed) the cups and pot were patterned in red and black with gold dragons. They were in the Chinese style, of course, but they still looked similar enough to the symbol of Shimada Industries that it made them smile.

Still, they were happy to assist and let the friendly chatter behind them wash over them. They were just plating the food when Hanzo, looking sleep-rumpled, wandered in. Jesse greeted him with a warm kiss that made Hana- _chan_ and Hanami- _chan_ gag and when he turned to Li Xuan-Feng, they shoved a glass mug of cold-brew into Hanzo’s hands.

“I thought we were going out this morning?” Hanzo asked, frowning tiredly down at the table of food.

Li Xuan-Feng rolled their eyes and began cleaning up the kitchen. “Would you like some miso, Hanzo? Or is diner food sufficient?” They were already opening the rice steamer and scooping some into a bowl which Hanzo accepted with a grateful smile.

“I’m all set,” he assured them. “I’ll just eat the rice instead of the potatoes.”

“As all sensible people do,” Li Xuan-Feng said gravely. John Jesse McCree smiled awkwardly when he saw Li Xuan-Feng portioning out a bowl of rice for Hana- _chan_  as well. Hers was topped with a fried egg and she clapped excitedly when it was brought to her.

They saw Hanzo lean over to John Jesse McCree. “They’re joking,” he whispered and kissed his husband’s whiskered cheek.

“I don’t think they like me,” the American whispered back.

Hanami- _chan_  snorted. “You interrupted tea time! But they’re just too nice to say anything about it.”

They straightened the kitchen without deigning that a response and returned to their spot. The tea was cold of course, was oversteeped, and entirely too sweet and they sighed in disappointment. An entirely new pot would have to be made.

“I’m sorry,” John Jesse McCree said so endearingly that Li Xuan-Feng had to sigh. “I didn’t mean-”

“My function is the do anything and everything asked of me by Shimada- _sama_ ,” they interrupted. “Today I was asked to remain here and see to the needs of his family and to ensure that they are getting settled comfortably. As I told Hanami- _chan_ , my tea time is only an indulgence, not a requirement.”

Perhaps hoping to cut off more embarrassment, Hana- _chan_ said, “That’s a nice teapot!”

“It was a gift from  _Oji-san_ ,” Hanami- _chan_  told her. “I helped pick it out!”

“And everything with your family must have dragons on it,” Li Xuan-Feng said with dry amusement.

Hanami- _chan_  snorted. “Not  _my_  family! The Ueoka family animal is  _koi_!”

“Carp,” Li Xuan-Feng explained when John Jesse McCree looked confused. “But the modern Ueoka family seal is a peacock  _and a koi_.”

The  _miko_  snorted. “Devil birds,” she muttered. She turned to Hanzo who was beginning to perk up as he ate. “What’s on your schedule for today?”

“We were going to have a slow day,” Hanzo said, clearing his mouth of food with a long sip of coffee. “Walk around the grounds and maybe wander around town. Nothing too crazy.”

“Can we get ramen?” Hana- _chan_  asked excitedly.

Shaking their head, Li Xuan-Feng put the kettle back on the stove.

Tea time take two.

* * *

Their tea was just beginning to cool to the proper temperature when their phone rang.

“Gods,” they said out loud. “Ancestors, what have I done to displease you so?” They didn’t bother looking at the name on the display, having changed the ringtone accordingly. “ _Hai, moshi-moshi_.”

“ _Ohio_ ,” the American said on the other end.

They checked the time. “ _Konnichi-wa_ ,” they replied. “How can I help you, Mr. McCree?”

There was an awkward pause on the other end. “ _Sorry, ma’am_ ,” he said. They wondered what kind of smooth-talker this John Jesse McCree character was if all of their interactions were so  _awkward_. It could also be that he were just awkward around Li Xuan-Feng; it wouldn’t be the first time someone was. “ _I didn’t check the time there. Good afternoon! How are you?_ ”

Knowing that their tea time was about to be cut short (again), they gave up and swallowed the tea in their cup like a shot. They had the feeling that they’d be craving alcohol by day’s end. “I am doing well, Mr. McCree. How may I be of assistance?”

“ _Uhh_ ,” John Jesse McCree said ineloquently on the other end. “ _I think I’m lost_.”

Standing, they poured the rest of the tea directly into their mouth, wishing it was sake. Briskly, they dumped the used tea into the compost and rinsed out their tea set. “Give me a moment and I will find you.”

* * *

How Hanzo had managed to lose his husband was beyond them.

How he and Hana- _chan_  managed to  _not notice that the tall American was missing_  was also beyond them but perhaps that was simply their own quirk to…you know…pay attention to the group.

They flipped a coin like they did in those old American Westerns to the stall worker and winked; he looked like he was about to exsanguinate through his nose as he handed over their bubble tea. Thanking him demurely, Li Xuan-Feng continued on.

_I’m by a tall building_ , John Jesse McCree had said rather unhelpfully.

Hanamura was a small town at the edge of a shrine but there were still quite a handful of tall buildings. They didn’t even want to  _think_  of the potential that John Jesse McCree wasn’t in Hanamura, but in one of the cities surrounding the base of the hill.

It was like the world’s worst game of hide-and-seek crossed with some stupid riddle game that Li Xuan-Feng hadn’t played since they were…six, maybe? Seven? Certainly younger than ten.

They hadn’t liked it then, either.

Two blocks away from the bubble tea stall they paused and looked around. Only a few blocks away from the gates of the shrine, the city seemed completely different. It seemed much more urban though it was still very slow compared to a proper city.

Shaking their head, Li Xuan-Feng wandered to the tea merchant, Lao Fugui, who greeted them enthusiastically in Mandarin. He sold almost exclusively Japanese teas of passable quality but every once in a while he’d order a very nice shipment of jasmine tea for Li Xuan-Feng.

“ _Xiàwǔ hǎo_ ,” Li Xuan-Feng told him absently. “I’m looking for a lost American.”

The man wrinkled his nose. “What kind of ‘lost’?” Lao Fugui wanted to know.

Li Xuan-Feng gestured to the barely-visible arches of the _tori_  gate to the shrine. “Somewhere between there and here-ish he managed to get himself separated from Kichirou- _sama_ ’s son.”

The tea merchant clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “ _That_  kind of lost, hm.”

“Indeed,” Li Xuan-Feng said, sipping from their bubble tea. In their opinion it shouldn’t be called tea but they couldn’t deny that they were fond of the sugary sweetness. It would also make Lao Fugui try to usher them quicker from his stall as the merchant didn’t share his affection for the overly-sweet drink.

“ _Bah_!” Lao Fugui snapped though they knew he wasn’t particularly angry, just grumpy and a bit of a tea purist himself. They could relate at least a little bit. “You drive a hard bargain, Li Xuan-Feng!” he switched to Mandarin and gestured vaguely to one of the many winding alleyways that turned Hanamura into a maze. “ _The American asked directions for a particular store and I directed him that way_.”

Hearing the name of the store, Li Xuan-Feng’s brows rose toward their hairline. They flipped a five hundred  _en_  piece to Lao Fugui with a wink and a  _xiè-xie_ before ducking away down the alleys.

* * *

“Soo…” John Jesse McCree began when Li Xuan-Feng found him. “This ain’t what it looks like.”

They glanced down at the small army of animals around him, the opaque bag tucked under one arm, and the small cluster of strays still gobbling down what looked to have once been a burger. Li Xuan-Feng sipped their bubble tea, now nearly half gone. “I don’t want to know,” they told him dryly. “Do you still want to wander around or would you like to head back to the shrine?”

“To the shrine, please,” John Jesse McCree said meekly.

Li Xuan-Feng watched them wade out of the animals and turned to begin leading the way out. “Don’t try to slip me,” they warned him.

“Never, ma’am,” the American promised. “I bet Han’s worried.”

Their brows rose at the nickname but said nothing of it. What they called each other was none of their business. They pulled out their phone as it began to ring. “ _Hai, moshi-moshi_.”

“ _Li Xuan-Feng!_ ” Hanzo said in a rush. “ _Have you seen-_ ”

“I was running errands and ran into him,” Li Xuan-Feng said smoothly. “He was by Lao Fugui’s tea stall, across the street from Rikimaru’s ramen. He got a bit turned around in some of the back alleys.”

Hanzo paused, clearly trying to orient himself. “ _Ah! Thank you, Li Xuan-Feng. Do you think…?_ ”

“Yes,” Li Xuan-Feng replied. “I will bring him to you.” They fixed John Jesse McCree with a hard look. “Give me your bag,” they said sternly as they approached the main street.

The American gripped it nervously. “Ah…”

“If I hold it, Hana- _chan_  won’t question it any more than Hanzo,” Li Xuan-Feng said, overly patient. “You could say that you just wandered off, not that you had wandered off to go into a kink shop!”

John Jesse McCree turned an impressive shade of red and handed over the bag. “Thanks, ma’am.”

They were sipping up the last of the tapioca balls in their bubble tea when they emerged from the maze of the alleys and found Hanzo and Hana- _chan_  waiting by the ramen shop. The men embraced and Li Xuan-Feng rolled their eyes.

When they turned their attention to Li Xuan-Feng, they bowed. “If you will kindly excuse me,” they said smoothly. “I must return as I have work to do. Despite this, please do not hesitate to call me if you have any problems for any reason.”

_Except_ , they thought to themselves as they walked back to the shrine and the Shimada estate.  _Please hesitate_. They tossed away their now-empty cup, cast another flirtatious wink at the worker at the bubble tea stand, and kept walking.


	14. Li Xuan-Feng: John Jesse McCree (2/2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Li Xuan-Feng only wants to enjoy their tea.
> 
> John Jesse McCree just wants to thank them.

Li Xuan-Feng was just about to pour the hot water from the kettle into their teapot but pulled it back just in time when they saw John Jesse McCree round the corner.

He held up his hands, eyeing the kettle. “Tea time?” he asked hesitantly.

“Not yet,” Li Xuan-Feng assured him as they set the kettle back on the stove. “How may I help you?”

John Jesse McCree looked sheepishly down at the ground. “I jus’ wanted t’ thank you,” he mumbled. “Fer yesterday.”

“It was my pleasure,” Li Xuan-Feng told him gently.

“Well,” John Jesse McCree said stubbornly. “Y’ didn’t haf’ta help me so much but y’ did. So…I wanna thank you.”

Li Xuan-Feng bowed slightly. “That is not necessary,” they assured him. “I am happy to help.”

But it seemed that John Jesse McCree was just as stubborn as Aimi- _sama_. (It was kind of ridiculous in hindsight, to think of all the stubborn people they were beginning to collect.) “Naw,” he said. “Lemme take you out for lunch. Or breakfast. You talked about an omelet place yesterday…do you like omelets?”

“ _Just do it_ ,” Aimi- _sama_  said wearily in Japanese as she shuffled into the kitchen.

“Mornin’, Aimi,” John Jesse McCree told her courteously as Li Xuan-Feng fetched her a bagel and cream cheese.

Aimi-sama grunted, clearly still tired, and bit into the bagel almost as soon as it was within reach. “ _I can take care of myself,_ ” she reminded Li Xuan-Feng pertly. “ _Go with Jesse, now. Let him treat you nice_.”

Crossing their arms across their chest, Li Xuan-Feng tried to be stern with Aimi- _sama_. “ _What is your ulterior motive?_ ” they asked in the same language.

“ _Wedding preparations_ ,” Aimi-sama said primly. “ _Now be a dear and distract Jesse for me_.”

The American was looking at them with a mixture of confusion and concern. “Thank you for the offer,” Li Xuan-Feng said to him in English. “I know just the place and I think you will enjoy it. Will Hanzo be joining us?”

“No,” John Jesse McCree said, clearly expecting nothing out of the ordinary. The poor fool. “He ‘n Hana ‘n Hanami are walkin’ ‘round the grounds again.”

Clearly he didn’t find this at all interesting which was unfortunate because if he had explored more he might have been able to find a good hiding place for when Aimi- _sama_  came for them to take them for a proper Shinto wedding. But then again Aimi- _sama_ , though she had been away for nearly three decades, grew up on the shrine and knew all of the hidey-holes.

“It’s a shame you missed the sakura blossoms,” Li Xuan-Feng said instead of what they were thinking. Friends they may be, but Aimi-sama would certainly beat them if they gave away her plans. They cleaned up the kitchen a bit before turning to John Jesse McCree who was seemingly dressed for the day in ratty jeans and a flannel shirt. Passable enough for the places Li Xuan-Feng intended to take him. “Are you ready to go?”

John Jesse McCree sketched a gallant bow with his hand over his heart. “After you,” he said and Li Xuan-Feng rolled their eyes.

“We’ll take one of the cars,” Li Xuan-Feng said. “The perks of being a personal assistant.” They led the American out and down the long path toward the garage.

It was a short hike made nicer by the neat stone path and the rows of shrubs trimmed immaculately as if to let them pass unchallenged. At the entryway to the garage, Li Xuan-Feng selected a key at random – a common occurrence when they didn’t have anything to shuttle with them. Then, eyeing John Jesse McCree’s long legs and tall stature (in addition to their own), switched the keys for something with more legroom than a Lotus.

Li Xuan-Feng was intrigued to see what kind of car person John Jesse McCree was. Far be it from them to judge masculinity ( _clearly_ , especially given the  _cheongsam_  they had chosen to wear that morning) but it would be intriguing to see if Hanzo’s husband would uphold the stereotyped ultra-masculinity of the American farmer.

When the lights to the garage turned on, they watched John Jesse McCree take everything in with an impressed whistle. “Ain’t much for cars,” he said to Li Xuan-Feng. “But tha’s an impressive collection there.”

“Most are gifts,” Li Xuan-Feng told him. “Shimada- _sama is_  the CEO of one of the largest mechanical companies in Asia. It is not uncommon for companies wanting to test or promote their product to send it as a ‘gift’ in hope of support or good publicity.”

They watched as John Jesse McCree nearly tripped over his own feet as they walked down the aisle of cars. “What now?”

“Surely you knew?” Li Xuan-Feng said innocently. They made a mental note to prepare an NDA for John Jesse McCree later but it was more or less okay for them to discuss this, given the American’s status as Hanzo’s husband. “Shimada Hanzo is the eldest son of Sojiro Shimada, CEO of Shimada Industries.”

Ah, so the American recognized the name. Shimada Industries was a rather global thing, after all, but their holdings weren’t as prevalent in America as they were in the rest of the world.

Something about wanting to give his family space.

“Wait,” Jesse said as Li Xuan-Feng slid into the car – they hadn’t even really looked what it was other than knowing it was large enough to more comfortably fit the two of them. “Wait. Yer…yer sayin’…”

Li Xuan-Feng pointedly unlocked the doors and gestured for the American to get inside. Unsurprisingly the engine started like a dream and they waved to the mechanics who poked their head out from behind a roadster; they waved back and returned to their work. They needn’t worry about the mechanics blabbing – no true secrets were revealed as Hanzo’s birth records were common knowledge.

“I work for Shimada Industries,” Li Xuan-Feng said when Jesse had scrambled into the car and slammed the door shut. Almost without waiting for him to put on his seat belt, they shifted gears and roared out of the garage. “As the personal assistant to the CEO.”

For a moment they were concerned that Jesse was about to pass out.

They really needed to work on not killing their employers – or their family.


	15. Not here!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Earning the M rating**
> 
> Pums is not amused. 
> 
> The table is (probably) desecrated. 
> 
> Angela thinks about starting a club.

“ _Jesse_ ,” Hanzo breathed. **  
**

The man in question chuckled and pushed him over the table. “Don’t be like that, darlin’,” he said with a laugh as he kicked Hanzo’s legs wider, running his fingers over his husband’s lower back. His thumbs felt the tiny divots over his pelvis and he let them rest there for a moment, teasing Hanzo with the idea of moving his fingers lower.

Hanzo’s head and shoulders shot up before Jesse could stop him. “Jesse!” he said, scandalized.

Pressing a hand between his shoulders, Jesse pushed down - albeit gently - so that Hanzo was lying down again. He was large enough that if he really wanted to fight, Hanzo could and would probably overpower Jesse.

When he didn’t protest, Jesse’s hands slid up his muscled back, curling over the gentle jut of his shoulder blades.

Jesse leaned down, pressing a searing line with his husband from groin to chest. “Don’t lie,” he breathed into Hanzo’s ear. “You want this. If you don’t, just say the word, darlin’.”

When Hanzo did nothing (just a little sullen), Jesse chuckled and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. He chuckled again when he _pressed_  and Hanzo moaned.

“You’re so _tight_ , darlin’,” Jesse breathed. “Haven’t been doing this often enough I think.”

Hanzo twisted and groaned beneath him despite his best efforts to keep still and relax. Jesse knew from experience that it was the best kind of pain and release, balancing on the knife’s edge of relaxing into the insistent pressure despite the sharp prickle of pain. “ _Jesse_ ,” he breathed more insistently. “Not  _here_!”

“Why not?” Jesse asked with a laugh, pressing harder. Hanzo mumbled something that sounded like  _unsanitary._  Maybe it was  _improper_ , but Hanzo’s faint accent increased in times like this and with his face pressed against the table his speech was slurred anyway. “Just gotta be careful, huh? Not make a mess?”

But he loved making Hanzo a mess like this, watching his eyes go unfocused and hearing those lovely moans as he pressed down, the little pops beneath his fingers.

The chef whined when Jesse’s rhythm increased before succeeding in going limp. He just let Jesse manipulate his body, more focused on trying not to drool all over the table. Seemingly all too soon it was over and Jesse was backing up.

Hanzo let himself lay there for a few second before pushing himself to his feet and rolling out his shoulders.

“How’s that?” Jesse asked, leaning casually against the table next to him with his arms crossed. He was a little too smug for Hanzo’s tastes but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how one looked at it) it was entirely warranted.

Hanzo rolled his eyes. “Fishing for compliments is unbecoming,” he informed his husband but nonetheless tipped his head back for the warm kiss Jesse leaned down to give him. He rolled his shoulders again. “But you _know_  you got it.”

Chuckling, Jesse leaned down to collect his payment - another kiss - before allowing Hanzo to return to the kitchen to continue prep for dinner. The poor man had been under a lot of stress lately and a huge knot had developed beneath his right shoulder blade. Well, under  _both_  shoulder blades but more his right than his left and it was affecting the way he slept and functioned.

What kind of husband would he be if he let Hanzo suffer?

(He definitely didn’t have an ulterior motive in hearing those lovely groans and moans, not at all.)

Grabbing a rag, he was about to wipe down the table when he caught sight of Pums standing in the doorway. He gestured with a thumb to his own lips as an example. “You, uh, got a little bit of drool there.”

It was such a rare sight to see Pums so off-kilter; he savored it while he could. She blushed bright red, sent a scathing look his way, and stomped back out.

Laughing, Jesse got to work on the table.

* * *

Zarya patted Pums’ shoulder with a massive hand, personally impressed when she didn’t stagger as much as someone her size typically would.

“It happens,” Angela said.

“They’re  _disgusting_ ,” Fareeha added, thinking back to the times she had caught them in the gym together. “Hanzo on his own is bad enough-”

“Good workout partner!” Zarya interrupted. “Skips leg day too much.”

Pums groaned in frustration. Her blush was still very evident on her cheeks. “I hate them. Why do they have to be so  _hot_  together?” 

“At this point it should be a club,” Angela mused absently.


	16. Li Xuan-Feng: Things Soothed by Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the pretty girls said “pick me up at 8”  
> All the pretty girls said “I’m headed to LA”  
> All the pretty girls said “I hate my hair”  
> Talking to the mirror in their underwear
> 
> ~All The Pretty Girls by Kenny Chesney

Li Xuan-Feng’s hands shook.

They ran their fingers over the bare flesh of their ribs, feeling the natural divots of bone and the unnatural curve where a broken rib had healed badly. The soft morning light did them better justice than the harsh fluorescent bulbs in the lamp beside the mirror, which would more highlight the play of light and shadow on their pale golden skin. On a good day they would appreciate the sharp lines they cut against their thin body, how the bright glow turned their skin shades lighter than it really was.

…but this was not a good day.

Today they wanted the soft natural light of the sun to cast charcoal fingers, try to hide the visible curve of their ribs and diaphragm, the hollows of their collarbones. One sat strangely, not quite symmetrical with the other and the pale pink scar along their shoulder seemed like the leering grin of a hungry demon.

So reminded of scars, their eyes caught the signs of the others, some healed and nearly-invisible, others more obvious than the others. They all seemed grouped, clustered, drawn to their ribs like a magnet. On a good day they would find this amusing but again, this wasn’t a good day.

Their fingers, still shaking, left the unnatural curl of their ribs to trace one such scar: a knife wound from a misspent youth or perhaps one could say it was simply from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had dodged the initial lunge for the most part, but the knife had sunk an inch into the skin and muscle. The worst of the damage had been done when their assailant had pulled the knife  _out_  – the serrated blade had scored a deep line in their ribs.

There was another one: a whip weal of all things from a child who thought they were cool than they truly were for having one and cooler for using it to strike a freak of nature like Li Xuan-Feng.

Their hands were shaking, their fingertips becoming cold – colder because they always seemed to be somewhat chilled. Turning from the mirror, they got dressed.

Today it was in an old English style like their foster-mum had worn on such days: thick leggings, a long wool skirt, and a long-sleeved button-up. Makeup as well – just enough to cover their pallor, the shadows beneath their eyes; red lipstick to give the impression of more confidence than what they felt.

The phone rang (big surprise there) as they were locking the door behind them. “ _Hai, moshi-moshi_ ,” they said absently as they wrestled the key from the lock.

“ _Good morning!_ ” Aimi- _sama_  said in rough Mandarin. It had been her goal to learn their native tongue but it was difficult going since she had half-learned Cantonese from someone named Herbalist Tang – she kept confusing her words in either language which to her sounded more or less the same.

“Good morning, Aimi- _sama_ ,” they replied, glad to hear that their voice didn’t waver. The hand not holding the phone still shook and they clenched their fist in the silk-lined pocket of their pea coat and ordered it – as if it would listen – to stop. “How may I help you this morning?”

_Not ready_ , the small, childish voice buried deep at their center said.  _Not ready, not ready, not ready_. It was a voice that they were fairly certain would stay with them forever; they simply learned to ignore it because the Shimadas were more important, more  _interesting_  than the doubt-ridden voice.

“ _I was hoping that you would join us for tea this morning_ ,” Aimi- _sama_  said, switching back to Japanese. “ _How would I say that?_ ”

The enormous  _torii_  gates rose in the distance, the start of the grounds of the Ueoka-Shimada shrine. Lao Fugui, the owner of a small teashop nearby, waved as he caught sight of them down the hill. Absently, Li Xuan-Feng repeated the phrase for her in Mandarin, and then again, slower, so she could hear the accents better.

Lao Fugui, hearing them as they approached, rolled his eyes. With their free hand, they held up a [fist with their thumb and little finger extended](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fqph.ec.quoracdn.net%2Fmain-qimg-b052b21d0ad78ed644af5eb742b559e6-c&t=MmQzNzA0M2I4YTkzNjE0NTNiM2RmNWViMzAxN2FlMWJhMWI4N2JmOCxnazhvdklGOA%3D%3D&b=t%3A7etQt34eE_SelRUtc0l7ew&p=https%3A%2F%2Fclassywastelandbread.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167466006881%2Fthings-soothed-by-tea&m=1); Lao Fugui prepared the requested amount and traded it for the bills Li Xuan-Feng held out.

“ _I’ll need to work on that,_ ” Aimi- _sama_  said.

In the background of the call, Li Xuan-Feng could hear Jesse say, “ _Is that Li?_ ” but with the cowboy’s accent, it sounded more like Lĭì which made them, seemingly against all odds, smile. “[Annyeonghaseyo!](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wiktionary.org%2Fwiki%2F%25EC%2595%2588%25EB%2585%2595%25ED%2595%2598%25EC%2584%25B8%25EC%259A%2594%23Phrase&t=MTljZTMzM2JkOThmMzU4ZDIxMmFjNDg4ODFkOTI4NTNiMTQwYTg1YSxnazhvdklGOA%3D%3D&b=t%3A7etQt34eE_SelRUtc0l7ew&p=https%3A%2F%2Fclassywastelandbread.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167466006881%2Fthings-soothed-by-tea&m=1)”

Li Xuan-Feng smiled so widely that Lao Fugui looked suspiciously at them. Still, he waved politely and then made a rude gesture as if to shoo them away. Ignoring him, they continued down the path toward the shrine gate.

“ _He’s very proud of himself_ ,” Aimi- _sama_  said in Japanese, most likely to spare Jesse the embarrassment of knowing they were gossiping about the accent that pervaded all of his words.

Li Xuan-Feng chuckled and even the doubtful voice was mollified a bit. “Baby steps. I just bought some tea from Lao Fugui,” they added. “Enough for all of us.”

“ _Lovely!_ ” Aimi- _sama_  said, switching to English, most likely for Jesse. “ _Hanzo is making breakfast. Have you eaten yet?_ ”

_Not ready, not ready, not ready_ , the voice inside them moaned.

“ _What about me?_ ” they heard Jesse ask in the background.

Distantly, they heard Hana- _chan_  say, “ _You’re eating all of the fixin’s!_ ”

“ _Am not!_ ” they heard Jesse argue. Then, “ _You’re eating jus’ as much as me!_ ”

Talking over them, Aimi- _sama_  said, “ _About how far away are you?_ ”

“I’m just exiting the first courtyard,” Li Xuan-Feng told her, their pace subtly quickening. They stopped beside one of the many stone gardens, startling the  _miko_  tending to it.  _Such a novel experience, to be so excited for something so simple_ , they mused to themselves, giving a short bow to the  _miko_  in apology. Chihiro _-san_  rolled her eyes but returned the bow with a sly smile and returned to her work. “I will be there in a few moments.”

The water was already boiling in the old-fashioned kettle on the stove, which they could faintly hear whistling, when they took off their boots at the door, and Hana- _chan_  was there at the _shoji_  door to greet them excitedly. Proudly she showed off her makeup – she kept the two triangles on her face like down-turned whiskers, colored in with the bright pink pencil they had both gotten at the store. They were more or less symmetrical, but her eyeliner almost wasn’t, one eye being slightly darker than the other and one upturned point slightly longer than the other side.

Smiling, they gently wiped the longer side to make it more even and cupped her cheeks in their hands.

They realized that they were still shaking minutely when she covered their hands with her own and squeezed them gently. There was a sad kind of understanding they didn’t expect to see in an eleven year-old but then, Hana- _chan_  was far from your typical child. “Come on!” she said excitedly in English. “Hanzo’s almost done! He made enchiladas!”

Still holding their hands, she tugged them into the main part of the house where Jesse, under Aimi- _sama_ ’s direction, was just pouring boiling water from the kettle into the teapot to serve. He nearly spilled it when he looked up and tried to wave but caught himself at just the last minute. Aimi- _sama_  slapped his shoulder for his inattention when he put the heavy kettle down but the cowboy only laughed, carrying on as if it were a mortal wound.

Hana _-chan_  tugged them toward the table with the tea. “Will you show me how to make tea correctly?” she asked but despite the phrase and inflection it was very much a demand. They handed over the tea they had bought and Hana- _chan_  let them hide their shaking hands under the table as they instructed her.

_Not ready, not ready, not ready_.

They watched Hanzo emerge from the kitchen, a steaming dish in their hands. As he passed Jesse he paused for a kiss and Aimi- _sama_  rolled her eyes fondly at them. Jesse set out plates and utensils while Hanzo carefully placed the hot dish on a metal cooling rack; Aimi- _sama_  brought out small dishes of onions, more cheese, refried beans, olives, shredded lettuce, and diced tomatoes. No one let them get up to help and Hana- _chan_  claimed that she needed them next to her to make sure she didn’t ruin good tea.

As the youngest she poured first for Aimi- _sama_ , then for Li Xuan-Feng – _as the guest of honor, she explained_  – then Hanzo, Jesse, and finally herself. She leaned rudely over them too, to make them a plate – _before Jesse eats it all!_ She had explained as the cowboy protested – but they couldn’t find it in themselves to mind even a little.

The family’s chatter washed over them as they curled their chilled fingers around the heavy ceramic mug painted with a smug cat’s smile. The childish, doubtful voice still whispered,  _not ready, not ready, not ready,_  but it was easy to drown it out with Jesse’s booming laughter and hooked syllables, with Hanzo’s dry humor, and Hana- _chan’_ s childish glee.

Aimi- _sama_  smiled at them across the table and toasted them quietly with her own mug. Smiling, they returned the gesture, their shakes more under control, and sipped their tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d been struggling to find a way for Li Xuan-Feng enjoy their tea and isn’t that the saddest thing? But on the way in to work this morning I heard this on my usual country station and realized that despite how confident, personable, and competent they seem, they are still plagued with the usual insecurities - more so in some ways.


	17. Don't Stop...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***Earning the M rating!!***
> 
> Jesse and Hanzo go out to a fancy dinner while in Japan. They come back a little frisk...
> 
> Li Xuan-Feng is amused.

After nearly putting his fist through the thin  _shoji_ door on his first day, Jesse knew better than to press Hanzo against the thin screen; instead he shoved his husband against the wall beside it, something far sturdier and up to the abuse. He followed closely, shoving himself into Hanzo’s space, encouraged by Hanzo’s hands tangled in his hair.

“Need to cut it soon,” Jesse mumbled and groaned when Hanzo used his grip to pull his neck back. He ground his hips forward when Hanzo’s lips attached themselves beneath the curve of his jaw, wet and hot.

“Don’t,” Hanzo murmured into his scruff, teasing the side of Jesse’s throat with his teeth. “I like it long like this.”

Growling, Jesse grabbed a double handful of Hanzo’s ass and  _lifted_ , slotting their hips together. Hanzo’s slender legs tangled behind him and their mouths found each other again.

“We need to be quiet,” Jesse mumbled, making no move to stop or quiet himself. “Someone can hear…”

Hanzo tipped his head back to look down his regal nose at Jesse, grinding his erection into Jesse’s navel. A flush had spread across his cheeks and down his neck, which Jesse chased with his lips, sucking a mark into the soft skin beside his husband’s Adam’s apple. He gasped, his fingers threading through Jesse’s messy hair again. Jesse’s large hands, one palming each cheek, encouraged him to grind into his rumpled flannel shirt. It took him a moment to remember what he wanted to say, had been about to say.

“Hana takes her ears out when she sleeps,” Hanzo mumbled, groaning when Jesse found another spot on his neck to mark. “And my parents… _ah - Jesse!_  …my parents…”

Jesse hummed against his neck and nipped again. “Kyōto, right?” he asked, drawing his tongue in a hot line that followed Hanzo’s jugular to the lobe of his ear. “And Hana’s with Li anyway, right?”

“Having a sleepover,” Hanzo gasped, arching his neck when Jesse pressed a wet kiss behind his ear. He growled, yanking Jesse’s head back by his hair. “You’re too good at that.”

His husband smirked roguishly and licked his lips. Hanzo couldn’t stifle the whine that escaped his lips or the helpless buck of his hips. “You’re wearing too many clothes, honeybee.”

Growling, Hanzo wiggled his fingers into the collar of Jesse’s flannel shirt, releasing the hold of his legs around Jesse’s hips. Obediently, Jesse set him down, following the tug and pressed another searing kiss to Hanzo’s lips. His hands roughly brushed the cotton  _haori_ jacket Hanzo wore off his shoulders and in the same motion, yanked his cotton tee out of his sinfully tight jeans.

“And you?” Hanzo challenged, tangling his fingers into the loops of Jesse’s own jeans, thumbing a little too high for Jesse’s tastes, running his fingers over the embossed letters on his buckle. The GAMF buckle had been a joke by Ana who encouraged Hanzo’s dry sense of humor entirely too much.

The thought of his adopted mother allowed him to clear his mind enough to begin unbuttoning his shirt while Hanzo helped to tug the tails of his flannel from where they were half-tucked into his jeans.

They met in the middle, Hanzo’s deft fingers making quick work of the rest of the buttons before it was nearly ripped from his body. Jesse yanked off Hanzo’s shirt while Hanzo yanked off Jesse’s and they giggled to each other when it only had their head and arms tangled by the clinging fabric.

Jesse managed to rip (almost literally as there was a definite tearing sound) shirt off first and tucked Hanzo against the wall again, mouthing along his husband’s bulging pecs, trailing his tongue suggestively down his sternum. Hanzo bucked, his hands grasping at nothing as Jesse continued to nip along the hot curve of his muscles, digging his fingers into the warm swell of his ass.

With a snarl and a more defined ripping sound, Hanzo yanked his shirt the rest of the way off, sending his neat topknot into disarray. But Jesse loved the messy, wrecked look on his face, the way his blush dripped from his cheeks down to his chest in a slow crawl like the greedy hands of a lover. Sweat beaded at Hanzo’s hairline and something wild and hungry shone brightly in Hanzo’s onyx eyes that did something terrible to Jesse’s heart - and erection.

“Bedroom,” Hanzo snarled, his nails drawing greedy furrows in the skin of Jesse’s back. Jesse groaned, lunging forward to add to the bright red and purple splotches he’d already added to Hanzo’s neck.

The thought of Hanzo having to hide them - or him having to hide Hanzo’s own possessive marks - flew out the metaphorical window with the rest of his thoughts when Hanzo yanked at his hair again and growled. The yoga paid off and Hanzo swung nimbly down from his perch on Jesse’s hips. His fingers released from Jesse’s hair and instead fumbled quickly with his belt, unbuttoning and slowly pulling down the zip with a suggestive smirk.

Jesse whined when he made no more move to touch him and instead twisted the long fingers of one hand into the loops at his hips and tugged him out of the doorway toward the hall.

Hanzo had just made it into the living room when Jesse wrapped his arms around his husband from behind, his hands centering over Hanzo’s groin, running his fingers with teasing pressure over the bulge there. Hooking his chin over Hanzo’s shoulder, he was treated to the slack-jawed gasp that had his husband arching his back so prettily into his teasing touch.

Reaching down, Jesse wrapped his hands around the inside of Hanzo’s thighs and lifted him again. Hanzo’s arms instinctively wound around Jesse’s neck as he arched his back - more payoff from a husband who regularly practiced yoga - and hooked his legs around Jesse’s hips. With his prosthetic hand bracing Hanzo’s left shin, Jesse was free to explore the arched curve of Hanzo’s chest and abs before thumbing open Hanzo’s jeans and pulling down the zip. It was a struggle because they were so sinfully tight and their position made them impossibly tighter, but Jesse had just about fished his husband’s erection out of his jeans when he noticed the glowing light of the TV.

At first it was an irrelevant detail but he happened to look further and saw Li Xuan-Feng sitting as casually as you please on the couch, Hana’s sleeping head pillowed on their lap as they sipped their tea.

If it wasn’t for the smug, infinitely amused curl of a smile on Li Xuan-Feng’s lips, Jesse would have thought that Hanzo’s father’s personal assistant - and, apparently, long-time friend - hadn’t noticed them as they didn’t turn their face from whatever silly soap opera they were watching but by then Jesse - and Hanzo especially - knew better. “Oh,” Li Xuan-Feng said softly, as if commenting on something that happened on the TV. “Don’t stop on my account.” Their fingers flicked pointedly toward the pile on the table that Jesse belatedly realized were Hana’s cochlear implants.

That explained why there wasn’t any sound from the TV - it probably had subtitles for Hana before she had fallen asleep.

Yelping, Jesse dropped Hanzo who seemed to have noticed them at the same time because he yelped, “Hana!” as he fell face-first into the  _tatami_ mat.

Hana stirred at the subtle vibration from Hanzo’s fall and seemed to wake up. Li Xuan-Feng gently placed their mug of tea down and gently blocked Hana from turning her head that way.

“Um,” Jesse said as Hanzo scrambled to his feet.

“It’s a sleepover,” Li Xuan-Feng said dryly and Jesse realized belatedly that they were in, of all things, a set of onesie pajamas whose hood had a raccoon face and ears.

Hanzo buried his face in the  _tatami_  mat. “Can you distract her?” he asked, voice muffled.

“Her ears are still out,” Li Xuan-Feng said agreeably and Hanzo pushed himself to his feet, his blush now one of embarrassment rather than lust. “Also,” they said just as they were retreating down the hall toward the room they were sharing. “Make sure you stretch! And use a condom!”

They were closing the door when they heard Hana asked too-loudly, a sign that her implants were still out, “Did they come home?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full title as it is saved in my Google Docs: Don’t Stop on My Account. 
> 
> Li…you’re such a creep. I love it.


	18. Bastian & Efi (Part 2/?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Efi doesn't visit. 
> 
> Bastian tries to help.

Efi didn’t visit for a week. It was discouraging.

Not that he had expected to, but he didn’t see Orisa either. He had the feeling that she was a private nurse for Efi and not actually a part of Watchpoint.

The doctors and nurses poked and prodded at him. They changed his bandages and gave him medicine and the male nurse returned every once in a while to give him a very embarrassing sponge bath.

Orisa visited one afternoon with a book and a few pieces of paper. She explained that Efi had been very sick though she was vague about what kind of sickness.

If Bastian was able to, he wouldn’t have asked more anyway after he saw the bone-deep worry in Orisa’s strangely golden eyes.

She explained that Efi missed Bastian and had asked Orisa to visit him in her place so that she could deliver a book and drawings that Efi had done for him.

Efi hadn’t wanted him to feel forgotten.

The nurses visited and tittered around him as they checked his injuries. He could feed himself with supervision, and the nurses turned it into a social party amongst themselves. They ate lunch with him but it was more as if he were a statue they had all clustered around.

The doctors visited and fiddled with his IVs but acted as if he were inanimate, less interesting than their phones or pagers.

Efi did not visit, but Bastian read the book she gave him and ran the fingers he had left over the wax lines from her crayons.

Dr. Kayode visited the day after Orisa had given him the book and message from Efi. Through the crude speech board they had created, Bastian asked for a coloring book or scrap pieces of paper and markers or maybe crayons. If the man knew why he was asking for such things he gave no sign except to offer Bastian a wide smile when he returned with the requested items.

It took some time to be able to work with…well,  _anything_  really, and Bastian relished the challenge.

He was finishing his first drawing when Orisa snuck in, well past visiting hours. Efi was unconscious over her shoulder but Bastian couldn’t see her with how she was bundled up.

Orisa smiled when Bastian offered the picture – it was crude, some kind of jay that he vaguely remembered seeing one day in the gardens with Ginny. The drab blues and whites were too boring so he turned it gold and white and green and orange like a sunny day in the park. Orisa assured him that Efi would love it and as soon as she woke up, she would present it to her.

She also left the news that Efi may be doing better and if the medicine didn’t make her too sick, they may be able to visit when she was awake. Orisa smiled tiredly and Bastian tried to do the same as they left.

Efi visited the next day. Her chocolate skin was sallow and she looked too thin but whatever nausea was hanging on her face was eclipsed by the wide grin she gave him when she saw him awake.

She was very sick, she told him as she apologized for not visiting. They called it ren…ren…rental? Rental failure! They had her on medicines and doing something involving a big needle and a scary machine that made her sleepy.

Renal failure, Bastian realized but didn’t say. She meant  _renal failure_.

Efi curled into his side and he hoped that he didn’t smell too badly but if he did she gave no sign that she was bothered by it. Orisa found them napping like that later as she very gently picked Efi up and carried her away.

To his surprise, Orisa leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead before she left and thanked him in a voice that was quieter than a whisper.

It was pure luck that Bastian saw Dr. Winston later that day. The other doctor wasn’t in a rush though he looked exhausted. The man still helped him set up their crude speech board and Bastian asked –  _Efi – renal failure?_

The other doctor made a face and reminded him that he couldn’t disclose patient information.

Bastian rolled his eyes and tried not to make it seem so condescending. There were more things on his mind than usual, clamoring for attention like a schoolbus full of excited children.

That night, Bastian stayed up late, going over lists and pros and cons in his head.

He wrote down his thoughts as well as he was able to and when the nurses came the next morning he tried to get their attention.

As annoying as it was, he wasn’t entirely surprised that it didn’t work. When they left he pressed the CALL NURSE button.

Again, no one came.

He waited for a while, would have ground his jaws if he could, and then pushed the button again.

When no one came once more, he considered his options carefully. The crude hospital-issued prosthetics required to hands and he only had two fingers and a thumb, making good use of his walker was out of the question. He wasn’t attached to any monitoring devices anymore – no EKG, no breathing tube – so creating a malfunction that would set off alarms was also out of the question.

But…there was a wheelchair in the corner.

Giving the nurses one more chance, Bastian mashed the button with his thumb and waited for fifteen minutes.

_Forgotten,_ he grumbled in his own mind, rolling his eyes as well as he was able to.  _Well and truly forgotten_.

Carefully tucking a corner of his note into his mouth and gripping it with his lips (and hopping he didn’t drool all over it), he eased down the railing and regarded the distance between the top of his bed and the ground. In the past it hadn’t seemed like such a height but knowing of his attempt at jailbreak…

Very carefully he wrapped his remaining fingers around the railing and eased his broken legs over the edge of the bed. His broken knee was of no help and stuck straight out but his other leg was nearly as useless, trapped in a cast as it was. He had no boot on it as no one had expected him to move around as he was doing and even though he wasn’t resting any weight on it, he could already feel the plaster slipping against the smooth tile.

Pick your battles, he told himself grimly and set his eyes on the next step: getting to the damn wheelchair.

Gripping the railing as well as he was able to, he eased himself over the edge and gingerly added weight to his good leg. Unsurprisingly the cast slipped on the slick tile and he ended up on the ground.

He grunted when he hit the unforgiving tile but was fortunate that he took the brunt on the impact on his hip and shoulder and the meat of his butt rather than his skull but he almost wrenched his good arm out of its socket to prevent such a fall. Biting back the cry of pain, his hand slipped and he was well and truly trapped on the ground. The cold tile seared a line of not-quite-pain up open back of his medical gown and he sighed, resigning himself to his fate of being trapped on the tile until lunch or whenever someone decided to visit him.

At least his junk was covered, which was a small miracle.

He had taken his note out of his mouth and the tile was very slowly starting to warm under him when Orisa ambled in. She frowned down at him in a nurse’s patented concerned-slash-disapproving look and shook her head as she helped him up and back on the bed despite his adamant gestures to go into the chair.

Wait, she advised, rolling her golden eyes as she found blankets and cushions which she placed into the chair before  _lifting_ him – as if he were a child, or a doll, and Orisa was strong – into the chair as he wanted to. She fussed over him some more, fluffing pillows, settling his gown, and sliding on the prosthetic limb he had been presented by the hospital.

Patting his cheek absently, she unlocked the wheels of the chair, placed his note in his hands, and began rolling him out of the room.

She asked him as they walked why he didn’t call for a nurse and with an annoyed grunt, Bastian mimed pressing the CALL NURSE button on the arm of his chair and she only sighed once in sympathy. The nurse’s station was empty when they passed it and the phones were ringing incessantly.

When Bastian pointed it out to Orisa with a questioning glance up at her, she made a face and said nothing. She wheeled him down the halls and through what felt like a hundred doors before the blank walls were gradually taken up by construction paper drawings and decals of fish and zoo animals.

Orisa explained that this was the children’s ward and that Efi was in for a “little visit” but the doctors didn’t want her to leave her room. Since Bastian was more mobile than she was at the moment, Orisa was sent to fetch him.

She added very quietly that Dr. Winston thought that seeing her friend would do her good and he read a thousand meanings in the tiny waver he heard in her accented voice.

Seeing him, Efi nearly shrieked with glee and Orisa helped Bastian hide his crude notes when she tried to hug him. The girl was connected by a spider’s web of machines and nodes and perhaps his horror must have shown on his face because Efi squeezed his hands reassuringly and told him that it wasn’t so bad.

He didn’t like that she seemed so used to giving such answer and did his best to distract her from all of the needles and nodes and tubes exploding outward from her tiny body.

The thing was that whatever was happening with Efi made her tired; she fell asleep after an hour of chatting away with Bastian and something fragile in him crumbled to see her seem to sink into her pillows and blankets.

Orisa came back, seeming to somehow sense that her charge was unconscious and told him in a whisper that she’d take him to Dr. Winston. She handed him the note back and pushed him out of the room and down the hall.

The man had visited Bastian far more often than was warranted, considering he was a pediatrician, but he still seemed surprised and pleased to see him again. He helped Orisa to move the chairs in his office to accommodate Bastian and his chair before the nurse patted Bastian’s shoulder and left to give them privacy. She closed the door behind her.

Pulling out a blank notebook, Dr. Winston asked Bastian how he was and they absently moved around societal norms to pretend that they had simply met each other without business to speak of.

Dr. Winston was too polite to outright ask why he was there, so Bastian took it upon himself and passed over the first note. EFI, it said. RENAL FAILURE. SAD.

Yes, Dr. Winston said, peering at Bastian cautiously over his glasses.

Bastian pursed his lips and passed over the next. KIDNEY? AB+ ME & EFI

The doctor very carefully put the note down. He cautioned that there were more factors for compatibility than just blood type. His hand twitched toward a stack of folders on his desk.

DO TESTS, Bastian’s next note tests. I WILL.

Dr. Winston asked if he was willing to do all of the tests necessary, was willing to go through all of that work and pain and frustration to test if he was compatible with Efi. There was a lot to be done, a lot of painful tests and in the end he might not be a match.

TAKE ANYWAY, Bastian’s next to final note said. FOR EFI OR NOT.

The doctor pursed his lips. There was more at stake and more issues than simple consent, he warned Bastian. He wanted to know if Bastian was willing to go through all of it for a child he hardly knew.

Bastian handed over the last two pages in his hands. One was his final note: EFI IS A CHILD –> HAPPY; the other was one of the pictures that Orisa had brought over while she was unable to visit.

For a long moment, Dr. Winston looked down at the picture, an odd look on his face. He informed Bastian that they needed to work on his penmanship while he reached for the phone.

* * *

 

The first step was payment.

Through their crude speech board, they agreed not to tell Efi or Orisa (or the Oladeles) of their covert plan. In the end it wouldn’t matter anyway, since after all of the tests and orientations, Bastian was delivering a kidney regardless.

They both just hoped that it would go to Efi.

Bastian had languished long enough on his own without answering the pressing questions of why he was at Watchpoint and now was the time to learn the answer. He met an accountant, a very shy woman by the name of Satya Vaswani, who was one of the many in charge of bookkeeping at the recovery center. She explained to them in very clipped words that there were regular payments scheduled with an account though who was paying she wasn’t entirely certain nor was she really able to disclose that information. What she  _could_  tell them was that the invoices were sent to a P.O. Box somewhere in Indiana and payment was sent via check and through a direct deduction from an account.

In essence, all of Bastian’s medical bills were more than paid in full.

She knew who he was – it turned out that she was one of the few that did – but the other person in the know, a nurse named Athena, had been told to keep his identity a secret. After some gentle cajoling by Dr. Winston, the only one of the pair able to do so, Satya admitted that she found it more than ridiculous but all of the bills were paid early or on time and the excess was used to assist in other areas.

Knowing that Satya knew who he was, Bastian carefully told them that Indiana was the site of one of his parents’ larger estates and one of the largest production company of the military robots that made his parents’ company famous. She couldn’t tell him the information due to confidential issues – this was said with a pointed look at Dr. Winston who shrugged – but she admitted that it seemed likely that his family was paying for it.

When Dr. Winston asked why they were accepting double payments and not trying to return the rest, Satya gave him a sour look that told him clearly that he shouldn’t try to tell her how to do her job. She explained in an overly-patient way that betrayed her annoyance that they had tried but whatever payment they tried to return was in turn paid again. Whoever was approving the double payments had been doing it deliberately though for what reason, none of them could guess.

The next difficulty was the legality of it.

They called Athena in – it turned out that she was working at that time, which was fortunate for them – and she was able to give them more information…after scolding Bastian for being out of his room and missing lunch. Their meeting was put on hold for a moment while she fetched Bastian a tray and Satya shyly volunteered to go with her to get lunch for Dr. Winston and herself, as she was still needed for the meeting.

It left Bastian alone with Dr. Winston who after excusing himself, checked a few emails and went through a few folders while they waited.

Athena was a brisk and almost sour-faced woman. She watched Bastian like a hawk but didn’t try to help him more than he needed it. As embarrassing as it was, it was nice to know that she was looking out for him. She even gave him a few hints and tricks that he hadn’t yet figured out about operating with two fingers, a thumb, and half a forearm.

When everyone had eaten, the meeting continued and Athena gave her piece of the story after swearing them all to secrecy.

The Metzen family – here, Bastian winced and couldn’t help it – declared Bastian dead. One of the reasons she was forced to enter Bastian’s information in as “John Doe” at first. She had locked down the system for a few months until she decided it was safe enough and let Dr. Winston (who had apparently been the one to authorize his new patient bracelet) change the name.

Legally Bastian wasn’t dead – he didn’t have a death certificate as that was, strangely enough, one of the few things that Watchpoint wasn’t able to do – but according to everyone else, he was. He had been saved by a strange twist of legality but she cautioned that she was fairly certain that he was wiped from all wills or rules of succession for Metzen Industries. Aside from the miracle payments for his stay at Watchpoint, there was unlikely to be anything that addressed his survival.

When asked, Athena admitted that she wasn’t certain what had happened to him, either. The mud and branches that had covered his body when he was admitted – as well as the state of his body – gave her a few hints, but she wasn’t certain she could hazard a guess.

He asked about Ginny and Athena shrugged. Five other people had come in at the same time as him but none of them had been named “Ginny” and none of them were left at Watchpoint. The way she said it implied that they were all dead and he resolved not to ask more.

Without his words, without the use of his lips and tongue, he couldn’t ask any more about her or explain what she looked like and not for the first time his forced silence frustrated him. He put it aside and tried not to think of coconut and strawberries, of green eye shadow and smirking purple lips.

The meeting continued.


	19. Suspicious Bumps and Creaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Earning the M rating**
> 
> Reinhardt is Very Concerned. 
> 
> Bastian is amused. 
> 
> Fareeha welcomes him to The Club.
> 
> Zarya ships it.

Reinhardt paused and very slowly glanced up. He glanced down with his good eye to Hana, who seemed oblivious.

The noise came again: a soft thump, a metallic creak.

Hana’s giggle drowned out any other noises that would have been heard and belatedly, Reinhardt glanced back at the TV. Though her “ears” were out, they had the Visual Description as well as Closed Captioning on while they watched  _Mulan_  on Netflix.

Before Hana, Reinhardt hadn’t thought about concessions needed for the deaf or blind. When Lucio and Hana had told him about it and that there were such options on Netflix, he had immediately wanted to see. It was a rare day that he wasn’t at the Diner, but the other day he had twisted his ankle and the doctors and nurses at Watchpoint, where he had injured himself, had insisted that he take a few days off of slaving behind the flat-top.

As frustrated as he was at being left behind, it was nice to spend time with Hana. She was such a tiny thing, even with her prosthetic legs, and sat sidesaddle on his lap while the ever-obliging Lucio massaged her aching stumps.

The noise came from above again.

_Thump._

_Cree-eeak._

Hana tapped Reinhardt’s big chest with a little finger and signed to him,  _I want a dress like that!_

From his corner, Bastian snorted, hiding his smile behind his remaining hand.

_Really?_  Reinhardt signed back with a wide smile.

_Thump. Thump._

_Creak._

He hoped it didn’t turn into a grimace. Glancing covertly at Lucio, he noted that the man didn’t seem to notice the sounds, but then he was deaf in one ear and that “ear” was out, lying next to Hana’s pair. If Bastian heard it, he gave no sign of it and Reinhardt realized that he didn’t know if the man was deaf or not. He figured that after nearly a year of living with the Bastian, it was probably rude to ask.

_You don’t want her armor?_  Reinhardt signed, ending the question with a gentle tap to Hana’s nose.

The girl giggled and wiggled the stumps of her legs, making Lucio roll his eyes.  _Even better!_

_Thump-thump._

_Creak-creak-creak._

It was difficult to hear the sounds as the sounds of the movie picked up but Reinhardt, now aware of it, could hear it coalesce into a regular sound. He thought about the layout of the Barracks and under whose room they were.

He tried not to tense up.

It was Hanzo and Jesse’s room.

_Thump-creak, thump-creak, thump-creak._

Reinhardt sat with mortified silence as he realized what he was hearing. The sounds were still quiet and Hana’s “ears” remained tangled on the table. She wiggled on his lap when Lucio pressed into a presumably sore spot on her thigh.

“Ouch!” she said too-loudly and Bastian laughed. “That hurts!”

Bastian signed something with his two-fingered hand that Reinhardt thought was something along the lines of,  _well that sucks_. Even after knowing him for so long, Reinhardt still wasn’t entirely certain with his translations of Bastian’s adjusted sign language.

The movie continued.

So did the sounds.

_Thump-creak, thump-creak, thump-creak._

Reinhardt made an excuse and shifted Hana off of his lap, to her disappointment.  _I’ll be back_ , he promised.

_Can you bring me juice?_ She asked.

“Anyone want anything else?” Reinhardt asked out loud as he signed it. Bastian shook his head with an odd look on his face but Lucio asked for another soda. Promising to return, Reinhardt crept out.

He made his way toward the back stairwell and climbed the steps quickly to the second floor where the rest of the living quarters were. The noises were different up here - now he could hear grunts of exertion and hear the thumps of wood more clearly. Much to his discomfort, he realized that the door to Jesse and Hanzo’s room was propped open.

As he walked into the doorway, he caught sight of Rishi, which brought him up short.

“I tried to tell them that they’re making a lot of noise,” Rishi told him with a serene smile. “But this was the best way to keep them from killing each other.” When he caught sight of Reinhardt’s confused expression, Rishi gestured for him to move further into the room.

The rhythmic thumping noise came from Hanzo who was tapping a mallet impatiently on the ground as he scowled down at a scattered assortment of papers strewn over the ground. Also scattered all over the living area of the suite were piles of lacquered wood and strips of cardboard. On the table were piles of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, allen wrenches, and other such tools. Chard lay among them, napping with a paw on a pile of washers as if he had fallen asleep while playing with them.

The box leaning against the wall revealed everything. HEMNES, it declared; in another corner was the name that struck fear in the hearts of every couple: IKEA.

Surprised, Reinhardt turned back toward Rishi to find the other man with Jesse’s puppy Pumpkin. Some of the noises he had heard earlier was from the dog grunting in glee as his belly and back were scratched.

“The rest of them are in the room,” Rishi explained when he saw Reinhardt looking at him. “You’re welcome to join them if you want.”

Poking his head into the room - noticing belatedly that Hanzo had earbuds tucked into his ears, clearly ignoring the sounds of his brother and husband… _jumping on the bed_. They had pulled the old mattress and box spring off of their old bedframe and appeared to be seeing who could jump higher.

Creak-creak-creak-creak-creak-creak.

The two of them had clearly been going at it for a while, if their sweating and gasping breaths were any indication. Whether intentionally or not, the creaking of the old springs and their jumping matched the timing of Hanzo’s absent thumping of his mallet as he tried to figure out the instructions.

“ _I give up!_ ” Hanzo snarled from the other room and the two men jumping on the bed like children stopped, laughing breathlessly.

Catching sight of him, Jesse laughed. “Sorry,” he said, panting as he wiped his forehead with the back of his flesh hand. “Did we disturb you? Hana said you were watching movies downstairs.”

Reinhard scratched nervously at the back of his neck and hoped that none of them figure out why he had really gone upstairs. “I had been wondering what the sounds were,” he said vaguely.

From the wide grin on the younger man’s face, Genji had figured it out; he ducked his head and said nothing. He accepted a glass of water from Rishi.

“Oh,” Jesse said, oblivious as usual. Freed from her blissful distraction, Pumpkin ran into the room and leaped at her “pops” (as Jesse referred to himself when talking about her). “Sorry,” he said to Reinhardt from where he was pinned beneath Pumpkin. He held back her jaws like a lion tamer and she grunted as she tried to lick at him regardless. She only succeeded in drooling all over him.

Taking his leave of them, Reinhardt swung by the kitchen and returned to the movie. Bastian waited until Lucio had taken a sip of his drink before asking in his thick voice, “Fuck?”

Reinhardt jolted so hard that he nearly threw Hana off his lap; Lucio did a spit-take, spraying the table with a mouthful of soda.

_What?_  Hana demanded, jabbing Reinhardt in the chest. She pouted at Bastian who ineffectively tried to hide his wide grin behind his half-hand.  _What’s wrong?_

Lucio continued to choke, coughing and sputtering.

_Nothing,_  Reinhardt said unconvincingly. Hana crossed her arms across her chest and sulked on his lap, pointedly ignoring the rest of them as she continued to watch the movie.

“Crisis averted,” Lucio muttered, glaring between Hana and Bastian. Hana flipped him off without turning away from the screen - clearly she had known he would say something as (Reinhardt checked quickly) her “ears” were still on the coffee table.

Groaning, Reinhardt propped his ankle up (it throbbed to let him know that it didn’t appreciate his little journey) and settled back down. Above, the rhythmic  _thump-creak, thump-creak_ continued.

* * *

“Welcome to the club,” Fareeha said dryly.

“I don’t want to be here,” Reinhardt informed her.

“None of us do,” Pums pointed out.

He regarded the physical therapist. She was around the Farm often enough that he saw her but he wasn’t the most familiar with the petite woman. Hearing that he had been injured, she volunteered to take a quick look at his ankle and gave him exercises to do and tips on how to take care of it.

“Well?” Zarya demanded. “Were they?”

Pums shuddered theatrically while a light flush flashed across Angela’s cheeks. “We’re all going to hell,” Pums muttered.

The table (and Reinhardt’s ankle) jumped when Zarya’s fist came down on it. “I need to know!”

“We’re…um…not here to discuss that,” Fareeha muttered.

Reinhardt coughed awkwardly and winced when Pums pressed at his ankle. “They were constructing a bed.”

There was silence in the room. Fareeha, where she was pouring tea, was frozen until the teacup comically overflowed; Zarya looked almost disappointed.

“I don’t believe it,” Pums groaned and Angela’s blush darkened. “I hate them so much.”


	20. A Questionable Treat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *****EARNING THE M RATING*****
> 
>  
> 
> More detailed warnings at bottom of chapter.
> 
> Hanzo enjoys a treat.
> 
> Genji needs to learn to knock before entering their room.

Hanzo’s throat clicked wetly as he swallowed and Jesse’s wide eyes followed the bob of his Adam’s apple, just barely visible from the angle they were lying at. When he met his husband’s dark eyes again, he bit back a whimper.

His eyes fluttered, a flush coloring the skin high on his cheeks as he licked and sucked and worked his way  _down_ …

Hanzo’s goatee, usually kept very neat, was a mess, sticking up in all directions, soaked and sticky. He slurped as he jutted his tongue out, the metallic blue stud on his tongue flashing wetly, teasingly, as Hanzo leaned back. With his free hand he swiped at his messy mouth, not unlike a cat, and smirked up at Jesse.

“Yer killin’ me,” Jesse groaned and Hanzo tilted his head into the hand tangled in his hair as if reminding Jesse that it was there. Reflexively he clenched his fist and Hanzo’s eyes fluttered shut at the tug, his damp, reddened lips dropping open slightly.

His husband licked his lips, wholly unrepentant, making his sticky lips even shinier.  _“La petit mort?_ ” he teased and Jesse dropped his head back against the back of the sofa with a punched-out groan.

“Hangin’ out too much with Am’lie,” he muttered, his hips twitching. Hanzo’s strong arms held him down, pressing a thumb into the soft spot just inside the curve of his pelvis which only made him buck more before he could get a hold of himself. “All that French…”

Hanzo’s low chuckle  _did things_  to him. “French cuisine,” he said absently as he licked his lips again. “But  _la petit mort_  is just…another  _kind_  of delicacy.”

Peeking down, Jesse opened his eyes just in time to watch Hanzo sink down again, his lips stretched obscenely, wetly, as he slurped and swallowed. Hanzo’s dark eyes, which occasionally fluttered shut, were trained on Jesse’s, daring him to watch, to look away, to push upward against Hanzo’s strength and weight on his hips and thighs.

With a wicked grin, Jesse tightened the grip of his flesh hand in Hanzo’s mussed hair and pushed him down. Either Hanzo had expected it or…well, he was just  _that good_  but after gagging just once, he pushed his jaw out and down and slid the rest of the way until his lips were wrapped around the base. He smiled smugly – as much as he could with his sticky lips stretched so obscenely – and Jesse heard the wet click of his throat as he swallowed around the obstruction.

“Yer gonna be the death of me,” Jesse muttered, breath stuttering as he used his flesh hand to gently rub his fingers through Hanzo’s hair. He released the pressure on the back of his head and simply petted the messy topknot and ran his knuckles along the shaved sides of his skull. With his metal hand, he tightened his grip on the couch cushions, afraid of hurting Hanzo with his (minutely) augmented strength in that limb.

Hanzo slurped again as he rocked back, following the motion with a flash of his ornamented tongue, chasing the mess he was making all over Jesse’s groin and his own hand. With a smirk of his bright, swollen lips, he dug the heel of his free hand into the apex of Jesse’s thighs and massaged his prominent bulge with his strong fingers.

Groaning, Jesse couldn’t help bucking upward, uncaring of the mess that was decorating the button and fly of his jeans. “Yer killin’ me,” he repeated.

“So you’ve said,” Hanzo said smugly, licking his lips again, chasing the sweetness that was making his mouth and chin sticky.

Panting, Jesse looked down at Hanzo. “You’re making a mess,” he said breathlessly.

Leaning closer, Hanzo took a deep breath, pressing a kiss to the button of Jesse’s jeans before licking it suggestively. “Should I clean up a bit?” he asked. Without waiting for a response, he tipped back enough to close his lips over the tip and  _suck_ , the blue ball on his tongue flashing as he licked what wasn’t already in his mouth. His eyes rolled and fluttered as Hanzo sank very slowly, doing his very best to keep Jesse’s eyes with his own.

He was nearly to the base when the door slammed open, making both of them jump and convulse for two very different reasons.

Hanzo choked outright as Genji shrieked. “ _What the fuck is your problem?_ ” the green-haired man screamed as he scrambled out of the doorway, running into the frame and opposing wall with his hands clasped over his eyes.

From the other room, Jesse could very clearly hear Rishi say, “I  _told_  you not to kick the door down.”

“ _Why the fuck would you do that?_ ” Genji continued to scream. Jesse struggled to not laugh and pounded on Hanzo’s back.

Despite the mortification of having his brother catch him - represented by the bright blush on his face - Hanzo still had a wicked smile around coughs. “I’ll get you a towel,” Jesse said, pressing a kiss to Hanzo’s forehead. Unable to help himself, he leaned down a little more to press a kiss to his sticky mouth and licked his lips with a wink when he pulled back. “Mmm, coconut.”

“We didn’t even get to the kiwi,” Hanzo lamented in a rough voice. Still, he was smirking despite the blush and the angry screaming of his brother just beyond the door of their suite. He swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand as he shakily got to his feet.

Jesse winked at him as he wet a hand towel and returned to his husband, helping to clean the stickiness from his mouth and stealing kisses.

“ _You two are disgusting!_ ” Genji shrieked from the doorway, his hands pressed over his eyes. Zarya and Angela’s heads seemed disembodied as they peeked around the corner, blushes on their cheeks. They seemed almost disappointed to see the two of them.

“What’s wrong?” Zarya asked.

Hanzo smirked. “Ice pops,” he explained. “Coconut-kiwi. Want one?”

“ _Who the fuck does that?_ ” Genji continued to shriek. “ _Why would you hold an ice pop like you were sucking dick **if you weren’t going to suck** -_”

Rishi’s hand appeared from wherever he was hiding and pressed against Genji’s mouth, muffling the last of his angry tirade. “Would watching Hanzo giving Jesse a blowjob make you stop screaming?”

Everyone turned red and refused to meet anyone else’s eyes though Jesse was fairly certain that it was all for different reasons. Coughing, Hanzo returned the wet towel to Jesse and gestured discreetly (or tried to) to the sticky stains on his jeans. “Nah,” Jesse said. “You go calm your brother down and get the girls some ice pops - I’ll just change and toss this in the laundry.”

Before he could walk away, though, Jesse dipped Hanzo as dramatically as the cover of a romance novel, and gave him a truly dirty kiss. When they both looked up again, the doorway was entirely clear of people (although the door was still open) and they smirked at each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More detailed warnings:  
> -Heavily implied misuse of kitchen utensils  
> -Heavily implied sexual content  
> -Lots of inappropriate language


	21. Misuse of Kitchen Utensils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *****EARNING THE M RATING*****
> 
> More detailed warnings at bottom of chapter. 
> 
> Ana just wants to have tea. 
> 
> Chard just wants a nap. 
> 
> Jesse and Hanzo make a mess. 
> 
> A sort-of prequel to Chapter 20 (A Questionable Treat)

Chard poked his head over the top of the pots and Ana got a brief peek at his milky inner eyelids as he drowsily inspected the interrupter of his nap. Seeing that it was Ana, he chirped and went back to sleep, making the pots grind and shift as he found a comfortable spot.

“Hello,  _habibi_ ,” Ana said fondly, tickling the cat’s spotted paws until they were curled up, away from her teasing fingers. Chard grunted. “Where are your fathers, silly?”

Not expecting the napping cat to answer, she turned away from him and began digging around the cupboards for her tea. It was a day for something fancy, she decided, as her fingers found the glass teapot.

It had been a gift from Aimi Shimada, who said that her husband’s personal assistant highly recommended such a tea which needed a specialized teapot to be properly appreciated. Jesse, Hanzo, and Hana, having met this mysterious person, agreed that their taste for tea was very particular.

The assistant, she had been curious to learn, was genderfluid – an intriguing thing given the standard idea of propriety that the Japanese gave off and the general air of disapproval they seemed to give off for homosexuality. More, Hanzo was able to explain and whose story was corroborated by Aimi Shimada’s letter that accompanied the tea, Li Xuan-Feng (Xuan-Feng being their given name, Li their family name, though Aimi had noted that they didn’t use the “proper” accents that would accompany the  _pinyin_  version of their names) was Chinese as their name suggested and had been adopted by a British family. They had very particular tastes in tea and ideas of how it should be brewed correctly, something Aimi thought that Ana would appreciate.

She had sent a proper letter – “snail mail”, as Zarya and Fareeha teasingly called it – to Aimi Shimada and Xuan-Feng, thanking them for the tea. It was the start of a sort of pen-pal relationship with the personal assistant, who turned out to be witty, intelligent, and just as particular about tea as had been promised.

The tea, unsurprisingly, was lovely on her tongue and for her eyes and more than once she had been caught staring, transfixed, at the floating petals of the flowers the balls of tea had become.

She was turning with the teapot in her hands to rinse and fill it in the sink when she caught sight of something odd. It was a stain on the chestnut-colored wood of the cabinets. Not unusual given its presence in the  _kitchen_  but…

The stain was white.

Ana edged around it toward the sink, rinsing the teapot as she regarded it suspiciously with her one good eye. Under normal circumstances she would have simply brushed it off but given the wild and lurid stories the girls had been telling her lately about Jesse and Hanzo…

And clearly they  _had_  been nearby if Chard’s presence was any indication. The cat tended not to stray very far from one or both of them and they in turn didn’t tend to leave him behind in the kitchen after he had decided that eating leftover chili straight from the saucepan – and spilling half of it on the floor to mock Pumpkin who couldn’t move past the doorway of the kitchen – was a good idea.

(Ana had felt bad for the vet that her boys had hysterically called. Turned out that garlic and onion were dangerous to cats and Hanzo had been extremely worried about the spices put into the chili. Being the helicopter parents they were, they had rushed poor Chard to the pet hospital where it was determined that, despite a bout of truly noxious flatulence, he was perfectly fine.)

Putting the glass teapot down in the sink, Ana very hesitantly approached the stain. Under normal circumstances she would be perfectly fine cleaning up but…

It was incriminating. A translucent white stain, like something had splattered against the cabinets and was still in the process of slowly dripping down.

Recent, then. Ana was far from prudish but there was something about the idea of her son…his husband… _the kitchen!_

From the angle she stood at, she could see that there was another stain on the ground. Twisting her head to get a better look, she eyed the wide droplets on the ground, hidden by the white tile. Another translucent stain.

She was deciding how she felt when the door to the washrooms opened and she heard her boys. Pumpkin, who had clearly been lurking somewhere around the corner, gave a high-pitched whine.

“Aw,” she heard Jesse say. “I hear ya, Pumpkin.”

The dog snorted and grunted in glee, her toes tapping excitedly on the tile. Hanzo entered the kitchen and blinked at Ana.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing a little when he saw what she was looking at. “We didn’t think anyone would come in.”

Ana pursed her lips. “It’s tea time,” she said faintly for lack of anything else to say.

Hanzo nodded absently as he reached for the paper towels and briskly began wiping away the stains. “Sorry,” he said again. “I was trying a new recipe but…your son distracted me.”

“ _He started it!_ ” Jesse said as he walked into the kitchen. The front of his clothes from navel to groin as well as the inseams of his jeans were disturbingly damp. He pointed an accusing finger at Hanzo, who returned the gesture with the middle finger of the hand not carefully wiping away the stains.

“I did no such thing,” Hanzo said without looking up at his husband. “You dirty snitch.”

Ana swallowed a lump in her throat. How could they be so…blasé about this? Especially Hanzo, who was extremely careful to be clean in the kitchen – especially when Jesse was around. Lord above, she didn’t want to be the one to say it… “What were you making?” she asked Hanzo instead as he threw away the paper towel in his hand and reached for another. She not-so-surreptitiously pushed the Lysol wipes toward him.

Seeing the canister, Hanzo made a face but still took them and pulled a few out. “Coconut-kiwi ice pops,” he explained. “Your son had issues with the coconut cream. I thought I could trust him to open cans, but clearly I can’t”

Jesse groaned, crossing his arms across his chest. With the tell-tale water marks on his flannel and jeans, he looked ridiculous and guilty.

Ignoring them, Ana looked down at the stain. As Hanzo tugged out the sliding trash bin, she caught sight of the handful of cans of coconut cream. Relief nearly made her weak-legged but she was made of sterner stuff. Turning, she began warming up her tea.

* * *

Chard snorted, clearly disgusted. The pots rattled and grated as he rolled over.

Jesse and Hanzo ignored him, waiting until they heard the door close behind Ana before bursting into relieved laughter. “Shit,” Jesse said, leaning in for a kiss. It was sloppy, Hanzo still laughing, but he made up for it by tangling his fingers into the loops of Jesse’s jeans and tugging affectionately. “That was close, darlin’.”

“We gotta stop doing this,” Hanzo told his husband though he didn’t seem as chiding or as repentant as it seemed he should have.

Humming, Jesse tucked himself up close to his husband and pressed a sticky kiss to Hanzo’s cheek. “We gotta slow it down,” Jesse agreed, only a little jokingly. “They’re catching on.”

Hanzo’s smile was sly as he pressed a damp kiss to Jesse’s neck, palming his ass; Jesse groaned. “There won’t always be cans of coconut cream to save your butt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More detailed warnings:  
> -Heavily implied misuse of kitchen utensils  
> -Heavily implied sexual content


	22. Think of something nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *****Earning the M rating*****
> 
> Amelie regrets her decision. 
> 
> Angela might ship it a little too hard. (...or not)

Angela glanced down at her fingertips, wet and wrinkled like little raisins. Her frustration was growing, a hot blush high on her pale cheeks as she clenched her fists.

_Calm down,_  she thought to herself.  _Just…think of something else._

It was strange that she failed at this – it had never been a particularly difficult thing for her to accomplish and yet…

Taking a deep breath, she began moving again. Small circles, firm pressure; think of something nice.

At first she thought of the latest movies. Sometimes they’d all go out in an enormous group to one of the movie theatres, a “dine-in” affair with enormous reclining seats and the option to purchase dinner there. The food was overpriced but it was a fun thing to do together.

She thought of the actors and actresses, of how the superheroes’ skintight uniforms clung to their bodies or the ruggedly handsome action heroes that always seemed to be remarkably put together even after running through a warzone in the mud and ash.

Inevitably her thoughts tipped toward Jesse and Hanzo, as they always seemed to, lately.

Jesse himself was basically the  _definition_  of ruggedly handsome though he never seemed to realize it – something that in many ways made him even more appealing. His mouth and eyes were quick to smile and his long auburn hair always seemed artfully messy. He was more the “sexy cowboy” than he seemed to realize in his gingham and flannel shirts and jeans and somehow even those stupid tacky belts that Hanzo and Ana kept buying him could detract from that. His eyes and face were always open, guileless, almost innocent and his eyes had always reminded her of the pictures of the desert sandstone: gold and red and brown in the right light, matching the subtle tones in his hair.

Lord, if he wasn’t like a brother to her…or married to Hanzo…

And  _Hanzo_ …

Where Jesse was open and affable, Hanzo was brooding and mysterious. She knew now that he was really just an odd sort of shy, which was honestly quite endearing when she had realized it. He always seemed quick to frown but that was only his resting face and when he finally warmed up to the Strays he was warm and kind and just as sweet as Jesse. Where Jesse was rugged, Hanzo was _ripped_. More endearingly he was remarkably shy about it and she knew from hearing Zarya complain about it that it had taken her  _forever_  to convince him to work out in the gym with her; one of the fastest ways to make him blush was to compliment (or fawn, that was always fun) over his enormous arms or his uncanny flexibility.

Hanzo, she had learned,  _did yoga._

When asked he explained that he had done it with Ha-Yun, Hana’s mother, for almost as long as he had known her – she had bullied him into going to class with her and naturally, as many sibling activities did, it turned into a not-quite competition between them. Genji was thoroughly disgusted by it and was only marginally more flexible than Jesse, a remarkable feat since her not-quite brother couldn’t even touch his toes without bending his knees.

_Together,_  though, Hanzo and Jesse…it was the stuff of every woman’s most erotic dream.

Angela felt a very different kind of blush rising on her cheeks, heating her face until it was an almost tangible pressure. Her hand sped up, the absent minded circles tightening as her breath quickened.

The two of them together were a sight. Jesse’s darker complexion made Hanzo’s golden skin seem almost pale in comparison and with their height differences they fit together like two puzzle pieces – like they had been made for each other. Hanzo’s roguish decorations – a bridge piercing,  _a tongue stud_ , three rings in each ear, a well-maintained undercut with the rest of his silky black hair tied in a neat topknot,  _those tattoos_  – compared to Jesse…

Angela bit her lip, tamping down the whimper at the thought of the two of them. It was utterly depraved, this she knew very well, but the two of them together…

It didn’t help that they were so remarkably  _open_  about their affection for each other. Quick kisses, lingering touches (chaste, much to her and Zarya’s private disappointment), the way they watched each other as if there was nothing else in the world but their husband…

Even things that  _shouldn’t_  be as sexy as they were – the way they took care of Hana (even though she didn’t need much caretaking, not with Lucio and Bastian lingering over her) and Chard and Pumpkin, of the glimpses of domesticity when they bumped hips as they washed dishes (Jesse wasn’t allowed near the sink with dishes, in Hanzo’s opinion, so he was stuck drying what his husband washed) or how Jesse pressed a kiss to Hanzo’s cheek or neck or ear whenever he leaned over or around or anywhere near Hanzo for something.

Depraved didn’t even begin to cover it.

This was  _Jesse_ , the man she’d known since she was eleven. They were as close as siblings, closer in some ways, and Hanzo was Jesse’s  _husband_.

But  _damn_ did she want to be stuck in a sandwich between them. (Not really, but the thought of being trapped between such burly men _did things_  to her.)

Her cheeks were bright red by now, she was sure, and she was sure that the weight of her guilt – and such… _thoughts_  – made her sweat a little. It felt much hotter than she knew it really was, and she realized that her hand was moving rapidly as her breathing quickened and…

“Angela?” Rein boomed from the serving window and with an embarrassing squeak, she jumped.

The rag she had been using to clean a stubborn stain in the breakfast bar of the diner flew out of her hand and straight into the face of one Amelie Guillard.


	23. Not quite mother of geese

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be something silly but it turned into something sweet (I guess) with Hog/Mako.
> 
> Oh well. Maybe I’ll make another sillier piece with Hana and her babies.

As if sensing something, the geese were restless. Hog and Bacon watched them as they milled about, pacing back and forth as one enormous group as if a part of a hive mind.

“Creepy, innit?” Jamie asked from his perch astride Hog’s broad shoulders. He was so light that he hardly noticed the weight, a ridiculous notion but one that Hog was accustomed to after so many years with the other man. “ _Birds_. Never much liked ‘em.”

Hog grunted in agreement and Bacon nudged her big head under his arm to solicit attention. He scratched her in an absent minded sort of way as he watched the geese chatter, honk, and strut around the pen.

“Not even to eat,” Jamie continued as if ignoring Hog’s distraction. It was unsurprising that his mind was on food – it always was and probably always would be. “Except the legs and wings - everything else is just too  _dry_. So I suppose I like bird well enough so long as it’s dead and cooked.”

Bacon snorted and Hog reached into one of his pockets for a treat. She was hopelessly spoiled but she was a good pig regardless and gamely followed him around. Smarter than most of the dogs he’d ever had.

But that wasn’t fair to the first Daisy, one of his late father’s hunting hounds.  _She_  was scarily intelligent and the sweetest thing. It was a shame what happened to her.

The geese – and a hard shove of Bacon’s big head – brought him out of his melancholy and absently he handed her another treat. She gave him a smug snort and ate the treat, only drooling in his hand a little. Wiping his hand on his pants, Hog focused back on the geese who looked around on their waving necks like a bunch of flowers waving in the wind.

“Back with me, buddy?” Jamie asked, looking down at Hog who grunted in agreement. “Y’ think they know Hana’s back?”

Hog shrugged, making Jamie bounce on his shoulders with a wild cackle. As if to echo Jamie’s laugh, the geese all honked and fanned their wings. Bacon grunted but soothed when Hog’s big hand fell behind her ears and scratched.

While Hana, Jesse, and Hanzo were visiting Hanzo’s family in Japan, it had fallen to Jamie and Hog (unsurprisingly) to watch her little flock of hybridized geese. They made it clear just how much they appreciated their abandonment and how little they appreciated their Not-Our-Mother caretakers (and Bacon especially, who turned out to be a good deterrent from misbehavior).

Bacon grunted and turned her head toward the dirt road that led to Base, which they could just barely see in the distance through the silvery haze of rain. After a moment, Jamie and Hog’s duller human ears could distantly hear an ATV and watched as like magnets all of the geese turned toward the sound. Their rude honks almost sounded excited and more of them fanned their wings.

Soon they could see one of the ATVs from Base rumbling down the dirt road. The motif on the hood was a cow skull – possibly Reyes, but most likely Jesse and from the way the geese all clustered by that side of the fence, Hana was along for the ride and they somehow knew it.

Hog grunted and rolled his shoulders; obligingly, Jamie grabbed the ham-sized fist he offered and swung down as with his other hand, Hog nudged Bacon. “Guard,” he told her and she scrambled to her feet with a grunt. The potbellied pig waddled down the stairs of the porch and loped with surprising speed for such a large creature toward the fence as the ATV came closer.

The geese made an unholy racket as Hana dismounted from the ATV. “Mama’s home!” she cried and ran the rest of the way to the gate which she quickly unlatched as Bacon drew close.

With Bacon nearby, the geese were more hesitant to flock to Hana, but that was alright because Hog had trained her (and his other pigs) to do such a thing when there were visitors. The geese used to flock all over Hana when they were excited, something that would quickly become a problem as they grew larger. Bacon was useful as a herding pig in this instance as the silly birds would mind her presence.

“Bacon!” Hana squealed excitedly, bending to wrap her arms around the pig’s massive neck. She disappeared for a moment, swamped by excited geese and hidden by the bulk of Bacon’s enormous shoulders.

Jesse pulled the ATV around the rest of the way, having let Hana dismount to greet her babies. “Hey!” he greeted them as Hog lumbered off the porch. Jamie leaned against the post and waved. “Thanks for taking care of the babies.”

“No problem, mate!” Jamie exclaimed as if he hadn’t just been grumbling about birds earlier. Hog kept careful watch over the geese and Hana. With a grunt, he handed her a small (to him) burlap bag of cracked corn.

“Did they behave?” Hana asked him with a wide grin. She was already muddy with steel grey feathers in her hair and on her clothes. “Thanks!” she added as she accepted the bag and began distributing her treats.

Hog grunted. “‘Course not,” he told her.

Unafraid of such a hulking monster of a man, Hana grinned up at him. Bacon moved through the flock, nudging the more aggressively affectionate birds away from Hana with her snout. “Can we take them to the pond?”

Hog looked up at the sky. “Later,” he decided. Hana pouted but it was all for show; it slid off her face like the light rain dripping off the backs of her “babies” as she continued to spread her treats on the ground around her.

“Tea’s ready,” Jamie called from the porch.

“I had really good tea in Japan,” Hana told Hog apologetically though she was already dusting her hands off. “Li Xuan-Feng is such a tea snob. You’ll see if they visit. I think it’ll take some time to get used to tea after tasting what they made.”

Hog grunted. He didn’t know who this Li Xuan-Feng was, but it was an irrelevant detail. The rain and the light chill of the air didn’t bother him at all but really he was more concerned for little Hana. “Pen,” he told Bacon who echoed his grunt and began nudging some of the geese toward the pen. “Dry off,” he suggested to Hana. “You’ll get sick.”

To his surprise, Hana wrapped her arms as much as she could around his massive belly. “I missed you, Hog,” she said with a brilliant smile up at him. She turned and ran toward the house he shared with Jamie, throwing herself at the other man in a flying hug.

“Hmm,” Hog said and obligingly latched the gate to the pen when Bacon squealed indignantly. “Missed you too,” he said though Hana couldn’t hear. From Jamie’s smile, he knew.


	24. It's not even Halloween...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the scariest things happen when it's not Halloween.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [ this post ](https://classywastelandbread.tumblr.com/post/167249688511/ohayokuroneko-replied-to-your-post-anas-fingers) on tumblr.

“They’re going to kill you,” Amelie informed them, listing a little to the side. Orisa shifted her elbow to keep her from falling over completely in an absent sort of way that spoke of having done such a thing many times before. “You know this, right?”

Hanzo rolled his eyes. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he said dryly.

When they looked at Jesse, he shrugged. “Ana must’ve been pretty distracted,” he said. “If she didn’t notice us leaving. But that may have been the fact that Hana’s geese got loose.”

He very suddenly had everyone’s attention. “Geese?” Amelie said faintly.

“Geese,” Jesse confirmed cheerfully. “Long story, I’ll let Hana tell you the whole thing, but now she has a small flock of geese that follow her around. I think she’s at ten right now.”

“Thirteen,” Hanzo corrected. “And whichever goose-herder is with her.”

Amelie pinched the bridge of her nose and Orisa sighed. “I feel like…I’m too drunk for this,” Amelie said.

“You’re hungover,” Jesse protested.

“Exactly.”

Orisa shook her head, making the little beads at the ends of her braids rattle. She hadn’t tied them in their typical bunches so the clicking and rattling continued as they settled, reminding the men of a rattlesnake. “Don’t let anyone else see you,” she cautioned. “I’ll let you in by the old ER. One of the entrances to the basement areas are there.”

“Ah,” Jesse said awkwardly. “Pums told me not to wander around the basement on my own.”

Amelie snorted and then pursed her lips; Orisa pushed a glass of water toward her with a pointed frown. “It’s haaaunteeed,” Amelie said and then pressed her fingers to her lips.

“You’ll be fine,” Orisa said. “Some of the offices near Satya’s are open. Do you remember how to get there, Hanzo?”

The man considered that, no doubt mentally mapping the way. “Ye-es,” he said at last, drawing the sound out a little. “I think I should manage.”

Orisa nodded, nudging Amelie upright and gesturing to the bathroom. The woman scrambled that way and a moment later they could hear her retching. “Like clockwork,” Orisa said tiredly, but there was a strange note of fondness in her voice. “She’ll be there a while and Mei should wake up in a few minutes to take care of her as well. We may as well get moving so no one catches you.”

The early morning air was crisp and foggy, making the grounds look like a scene out of a horror movie. “Where should I hide the truck?” Jesse asked and Orisa paused to consider it.

“Drive it into one of the bays for the ER,” she decided. “They look a lot more decrepit than they are and will hide it until someone walks all the way around the side.”

She waited patiently with Hanzo as Jesse moved the truck and the thick mist and his headlights made them look like ghosts. He shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold as he parked and locked up his car. Hanzo was fiddling with his phone when he returned to them.

“I have Orisa’s number,” Hanzo explained with a smile at Jesse. “Just in case something happens. And I gave her both of ours.”

Orisa nodded absently as she unlocked the side door and led them in. “It’s still early,” she told them quietly. “The basement access is this way.” She took them down the hall a bit and gestured to another hallway. A rusted metal cart loitered by the wall with flares, a first-aid kit, a few flashlights, and a ball of neon cord. “One of each,” she told them. “You’ll never know when the cord will come in handy.”

They traded uneasy glances, at first unsure if Orisa was teasing them. When they looked at her again, her voice was very serious and her golden eyes were trained somewhere down the dimly-lit hall. “Cord?” Jesse echoed as Hanzo began tucking flashlights and the cloth first-aid kit into his pockets.

“You’ll never know when the cord will come in handy,” Orisa repeated. She hesitated then continued, “We’d have a lot of self-proclaimed ghost-hunters come through and none of them had been able to see or hear anything…unusual. But every once in awhile…something happens. The cord will keep you from getting completely lost.”

“If we just go to Satya’s office that should be fine, right?” Hanzo asked, his hand hovering over the brightly-colored ball.

Orisa just shook her head. “You never know,” she repeated and checked her watch. “Be careful,” she repeated. “Call me if you need anything.”

Nervously, Jesse and Hanzo traded glances. “Last chance,” Hanzo said, his hand closing over the brightly-colored twine.

“It’ll be an adventure,” Jesse murmured and tangled his fingers with the ones on Hanzo’s free hand. “Shall we?”

* * *

They found an old, cracked plastic map of the hospital posted on the wall. Hanzo paused to take a quick picture of it after they wiped away the dust and then wiped the dirt and dust off their hands on their pants.

For a moment they appreciated the detail. It was clearly very old – the plastic, which had once been clear, had yellowed with age, and there were cracks in the frame and covering. The map wasn’t dated, but they both guessed its age regardless: Hanzo guessed the early 1900’s; Jesse guessed the late 1890’s.

Despite its age, they figured that it would regardless be rather helpful and followed the map. As Orisa had told them, the door to the basement levels yawned open just beyond it.

“Let’s tie the cord at the bottom of the stairs,” Jesse suggested. “So if someone looks down here they won’t see it.”

Hanzo nodded in agreement, peering at the dusty ground. In the light of their flashlights (the lights didn’t appear to work in this portion of the hospital) he could see only the faintest of scuffs from their shoes but there were other equally-recent footprints, even on the stairway.

“Sounds fair,” he said. “I doubt they’d see our footprints.”

Shining their lights ahead, they very carefully made their way down the stairs. Despite it being dusty, it seemed in very good shape, only having a few cracked tiles. The air smelled stale and musty but there didn’t seem to be much more wrong with it.

“I doubt this is near where Satya works,” Jesse joked as they continued down the stairs.

“No,” Hanzo agreed, pausing at the end of the second flight to tie the end of the nylon cord to the railing. Jesse found some kind of metal tube – less than a foot long – lying in a small pile of trash and they used this as a spindle to let the ball unroll. “But I guess we shouldn’t be too far once we hit the bottom floor.”

Once the knot was secure and their makeshift spindle in working order, they continued down the stairs. “How far do we need to go?” Jesse asked as they started down another flight. There wasn’t anything particularly eerie about the area but he couldn’t help but shiver. It wasn’t too cold, either, despite the chilly morning air outside and the probability that this area of Watchpoint hadn’t been heated in a while.

“Just to the bottom,” Hanzo replied. By unspoken agreement they tried not to shine their lights down the abandoned halls and doorways to see what lay beyond the clinging darkness. “It should only be a few flights.”

But there was a sudden hint of doubt in his voice as they continued down.

And down.

“Alright,” Jesse said, stopping in the middle of a flight of stairs. “Han, you said only a few flights, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hanzo agreed. “I think the most I’d ever walked down to reach Satya was only a story or so.”

Jesse huffed. “This is the fifth flight of stairs we’ve walked down,” he pointed out. “ _Since I started counting_.”

For a moment, Hanzo was quiet, flicking his light up to Jesse’s abdomen so he didn’t blind his husband with the warm golden light. “We _have_  been walking for a while,” he agreed quietly. “I just didn’t want to say anything.”

“Let’s just head back up,” Jesse said.

“Or one more flight down,” Hanzo suggested. “Then we can see where we get.”

Grumbling, Jesse agreed and was about to turn down when the light of his flashlight caught on the neon cord trailing from the makeshift spindle in Hanzo’s hand. “Han,” he said slowly and from the stiffening of his husband’s shoulders, he noticed it too.

The cord led downward, the end tied to the railing at the flight just below them.

“We’d been walking down, right?” Jesse asked faintly, his free hand groping for Hanzo’s hip. His fingers found his belt loops and tangled there, unable to hold his husband’s hand since they were both full.

Hanzo nodded. “Here,” he said and handed his flashlight to Jesse while he fumbled in his pockets. There was a quiet  _click_  as he pulled out the small folding knife Jack had given him for his birthday; he cut the rope and put the knife away. “Let’s go back upstairs,” he suggested as the neon cord hung forlornly from the railing.

“Yeah,” Jesse said and they both turned, walking quickly upstairs, where they could just see the light of the rest of Watchpoint and the sunlight shining in through the windows of the old ER bays.

They turned a corner of the stairs and Hanzo sighed. The neon cord hung from the railing where it had been cut, just ahead of them.

“Guess we’re stuck here,” Jesse said, clearly trying to make the best of it. “Let’s explore this hallway a bit, hm?”

Nodding, Hanzo retied the cord to the railing (“fat load of good it’ll do,” he grumbled to Jesse as he worked. “But at least we’ll know when we’re going in circles I guess.”) and they eyed the shadows beyond the doors.

“I can’t imagine why there would be so much underground,” Jesse commented as they unanimously chose a decision and began walking in that direction. Hanzo let him lead, absently watching the lazy spin of the cord on the makeshift spindle. “If the hospital is so old.”

Hanzo shrugged though Jesse couldn’t see it. With one hand he held the spindle and in the other he pinched his flashlight and tangled the rest of his fingers in Jesse’s belt loops so they wouldn’t get separated. “I think Satya said that the hospital used to be a castle.”

“Eew,” Jesse said. “But I doubt it…it looks old but not  _that_  old.”

“We can look it up later,” Hanzo promised as they continued down the halls.

Unsurprisingly there were no windows but there were metal tubes that traveled along the cement walls, broken intermittently by old-styled lights. The walls were unpainted and seemed sound and whole, with no cracks or mold; just the pervasive dirt and dust that coated everything in this area.

Mercifully the doorways, few and far between, were boarded up so they didn’t see the gaping maws of abandoned rooms; though they weren’t sure how they felt about it, they could only move forward.

They found another map which strangely enough seemed cleaner than the one that had found earlier, at least clean enough to read it.

“This don’t make sense,” Jesse complained and pressed a finger of his flesh hand to the faded star that marked their location. As he drew it along the hallway they were walking on, it drew a clean streak on the aged glass; he used it to draw a circle around the room the map indicated was just ahead. “That there’s the front lobby.”

Hanzo eyed the map and took a picture of it with his phone. “Could the old lobby have been buried?” he suggested halfheartedly.

“There aren’t any hills in New Jersey,” Jesse informed him. “Not this far south or this far east of the Appalachians.”

“The Appalachians are in Pennsylvania,” Hanzo pointed out.

Jesse’s smudged finger jabbed the air emphatically. “Exactly!” he said. “So why is Watchpoint built on a hill? Why is there a  _buried lobby_?”

“Why is Base built on a hill?” Hanzo asked pointedly.

Rolling his eyes, Jesse reeled Hanzo in and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “It’s the cleared-out soil of the rest of the farm,” he said with a quick grin. “Well, built up so there wouldn’t be an issue with rain washing it away and such.”

“Can’t that have happened here?” Hanzo asked as he peered at the map. Along the margins was a frontal view of the hospital-maybe-former-castle. “See? It looks completely different in  _this_  picture. And the grounds look more flat.”

Jesse peered at the margins on his side and made an odd noise. “Yeah, it was a lot flatter – look!”

Obligingly, Hanzo edged closer to Jesse to look at the picture he pointed to. It was a faded sketch from what looked like the austere front gates. Those at least looked familiar though clearly they couldn’t have been the exact same as the one shown in the picture. Beyond it was Watchpoint minus the hill that Hanzo had grown used to seeing from the front gates….but it definitely wasn’t the Watchpoint they were used to. There were more spires, gargoyles, small windows with metal bars.

Nothing looked the same and they tried not to let it bother them too much.

After a while they continued on, a little reluctantly. The mystery of the buried lobby still sat unwell with them as they explored the space.

Sure enough, it at least resembled one. On one side was what could have once been a desk. Chunks of plaster decorated the cracked tiles and dust hung heavily in the air. Strangely enough – one of many strange happenings – the air didn’t smell musty or even dirty just…a little stale.

Their flashlights flared, fighting back the darkness to explore the area though they kept their arms carefully hooked together. Neither wanted to admit how comforting the other’s warmth against their side was and given how they had been mysteriously wandering in the stairwell, they didn’t want to know what would happen if they got separated.

A stairway rose, or tried to, just to their right. Time had destroyed them and now they hung, listing and jagged like a broken zipper, like gnashing teeth. There were three other doors in the lobby. What had once been the front door was bricked up, as was the door directly to their right; once more they could only go forward.

To reassure himself (and Jesse, who watched him), Hanzo tugged gently on the cord and watched the neon line, shining dimly in the pale light of their flashlights, bounce. It seemed to stretch about as far as they had expected it to, at least until the darkness swallowed it again, and they both breathed a sigh of relief.

“Wait,” Jesse said suddenly. “Turn off your light.”

Hanzo hesitated, pressing tighter against Jesse’s side, and obeyed. He wasn’t one to typically be afraid of the dark but there was something extra eerie about being trapped in the bowels of a hospital. When he peeked his eyes open, half afraid of seeing something leap out of the inky darkness in front of them, he realized that he could see.

Just a little.

Pale golden light caught on the decorations of Jesse’s hat, on the dust stretching between them and the open doorway just head. Some of the broken chunks of plaster and other detritus caught the light as well; it was as if they were standing on a cloudy night, just barely able to see in front of them.

The light was there, nonetheless.

Clicking his light back on, Jesse tipped beneath his mouth it so that it illuminated his face; his expression was hopeful even if he looked like he was about to tell a campfire story.

“Let’s be careful,” Hanzo whispered, unable to name why he felt so uneasy speaking louder. He turned on his own light and tipped it up to peer at the ceiling. There were chunks of plaster missing on the roof above them and though appearances didn’t necessarily mean anything, it seemed to be holding up sturdily enough.

Jesse nodded, shining his own light cautiously. “Yeah,” he whispered back. “Quickly now.”

They shuffled quickly but carefully along, switching back and forth between looking up and looking down to avoid the broken sections of plaster and ceiling. In the hallway across the lobby, they found another map on the other side of the splintered remains of what had once been an enormous wooden door.

The detritus from rot and whatever had affected the lobby had been swept into small piles on either side of the doorway. The thick metal bands that had once held the timbers together caught the golden light as well in a way that was strangely both eerie and hopeful.

Jesse muttered to himself as he studied the map. It seemed to be in better condition than the previous one and was clearly made under the assumption that whoever was looking at it had a destination in mind. It wasn’t a whole map of the hospital, but what seemed to be the wing they were now no.

“‘To Laboratory and Quarantine’,” Jesse read, underscoring the neatly-printed words with a line drawn in the dust by his flesh finger.

Hanzo hummed, glancing back at the lobby. The string still bobbed reassuringly along their path. “I think Satya said once that this used to be a hospital for tuberculosis. Or some kind of disease.”

“Satya seems to know a lot about this place,” Jesse murmured and Hanzo shrugged. “We can ask her later. First…let’s figure out how to get out of here.” He leaned down for a reassuring kiss that tasted like dust and chalk and nervous sweat; Hanzo brushed their noses together after the kiss and tried his best to smile up at his husband.

They looked back at the map. “Hmm,” Hanzo said as he eyed it. He juggled the items in his hands and used the one he liberated to draw circles in the dust around some of the small rooms. “Some of these say ‘Water Closet’ but  _this_  one says ‘BC’. Bathroom closet? Why is it labeled differently?”

Jesse shrugged and Hanzo took a picture of the map. “Weird,” he muttered. “Look, there’s another one!” he waited until Hanzo lowered his phone to circle another room labeled “BC”.

They took a few more moments to look at the map. There were large rooms with drawn-on cots labeled “Quarantine” on one side and “Testing” on the other. Occasionally there was another room that read “Laboratory”.

“Maybe the water closets are the ones in the hallways and the bathroom closets are the ones in the rooms?” Jesse suggested.

Hanzo was already shaking his head. “There’s a ‘wash room’ in the testing and quarantine rooms,” he pointed out. “Why are those labeled differently?”

“Maybe because they’re used for the patients?” Jesse suggested and pointed to the “water closets” and then the “wash rooms”. “The wash rooms are only in the rooms with quarantine or testing patients and the water closets are in the halls. Ah! Let’s just ask Satya – or maybe Orisa – when we get out.”

Hanzo nodded and traced a line down the hallway. “There must be another way out this way, or another stairway that goes up.” He glanced at Jesse and didn’t say what was on the tip of his tongue.  _But what if there isn’t?_

Arm-in-arm, they walked down the hallway. Unlike the other one they had walked down to get here, this hallway’s doors yawned open, the darkness inside made even eerier by their lack of windows and the increasingly bright light.

Soon they could see the glowing lights and hear the faint hum of the electricity powering it. Standing beneath the first light, they turned off their flashlights and basked in its flickering golden glow for a moment. They surveyed their surroundings again.

The hallway they stood in had apparently escaped whatever wrath had hit the lobby, as there were no chunks of plaster to decorate the floors. There simply the pervasive dust and sand and dirt that seemed to coat the floors wherever they went. Here the walls were in slightly better shape, bearing only a few cracks in the walls from what seemed like normal wear and tear though of course neither of them would really know what to look for anyway.

Behind them, where the neon cord still stretched, the darkness seemed even more absolute; ahead the golden glow of the flickering electric lights seemed far more reassuring. Looking down at the ball of cord, they shrugged.

“We seem to have a lot left,” Jesse said hesitantly. “More than I thought we would.”

“It feels like we’d been walking for much longer,” Hanzo agreed. “But I’m not complaining and it’s not an unreasonable amount to have taken up.”

Jesse nodded quickly and Hanzo tugged him closer reassuringly. At this point they were just trying to keep each other calm.

The darkness seemed to press in closer. Turning, they began walking forward into the golden glow of the lights.

They passed doorways that yawned open where the light of the hallway didn’t pass through. When they hesitantly shined their lights in, it was filled with rusting metal cots scattered around.

“I think the worst part,” Hanzo said slowly, voice still a whisper. “Is that it seems like everyone just got up and walked away.” Jesse nodded and said nothing. They could see a few tangled blankets and decrepit mattresses that matched the cots, a few chests falling apart where they lay.

“It doesn’t even look like it’s been looted,” Jesse murmured.

Hanzo snorted and they flinched when the sound seemed to echo. “Not a bad thing,” he said and they continued on.

Ahead was another doorway with a plaque beside the entry. Dust and detritus had settled into the grooves of the metal to make it seem black as ink: LABORATORY. More golden light illuminated the room, unlike the other rooms they had passed and they cautiously peeked inside.

There was a dusty leather satchel on the nearest counter, beside a rusting old sink; the spigot had been eaten through or broken, leaving behind a jagged wound. Wooden cabinets with dirty, broken glassware – some listing as time ate away at their supports – lined the walls. At its center were rusting metal tables, dented and dusty.

A woman stood amongst them, blinking at them in surprise. The lantern at her side cast a more reliable glow than the flickering electric lights of the room. She was writing in a small leather-bound notebook, or clearly had been when she looked up at them.

“Oh,” she said, clearly surprised to see them. “I didn’t think I’d see anyone else down here…and I didn’t hear about a ghost-hunting group coming today.” They must have looked confused because she gestured with a long-fingered hand at the makeshift spool in Hanzo’s hands. “Usually they’re the only ones that use that.”

Jesse and Hanzo traded glances. “One of the nurses upstairs suggested we take it.”

The woman blinked and slowly looked up at the ceiling as if processing that comment. “Ah,” she said but didn’t elaborate. She dusted her hands off and carefully closed her notebook, tilting her head slightly into her elbow as she coughed. “Are you lost?”

“A little,” Hanzo admitted.

“You wouldn’t  _believe_  what we went through,” Jesse said with a relieved sigh.

Very suddenly the woman smiled. It was a very strange expression on her long face, and her eyes crinkled a little, but it wasn’t unfriendly. She tucked the notebook into a large pocket on the heavy duster she wore and came out from around the table, snagging the lantern as she passed. “I can imagine,” she said. “They say that this place is haunted. What happened to  _you_?”

Jesse and Hanzo traded glances, suddenly afraid of what this stranger might think of them. “You wouldn’t believe us,” Hanzo said. “Trust me.”

The woman chuckled. She had a deeper voice than she expected and a slight accent they couldn’t place but her amusement was soothing. As she approached, they noted that she had two different colored eyes. “I’ve heard a lot about this place,” she explained and hopped up to sit on one of the metal tables. “Come along, tell me.” She coughed delicately into her hand and waved the other in the air as if to dispel the dust.

Glancing at each other again, they very cautiously explained their experience with the stairway. The woman didn’t seem to bat an eye though her brows – as red as her short hair – rose a little when they described their trek down the ruined hallways and through the trashed lobby.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “That ball of yarn must have a lot in it.”

“Oh!” Jesse said suddenly, as if realizing something important. “I’m Jesse; this is my husband Hanzo. Pleasure to meet you!” He shoved his flashlight into a pocket of his jeans and held out a hand to shake the woman’s.

The woman blinked at them as if surprised. Hanzo wondered if she was as shy as Satya though she was already talking more than the accountant tended to. He juggled the items in his hands to shake hers as well if she so chose.

“Moira,” the woman said, hopping down from her perch and shaking first Jesse’s hand, then Hanzo’s when it was offered. Her skin was cool and clammy and she scrubbed them nervously on the sides of her duster, seeming to be more of a nervous tick than anything of disgust. “My name is Moira.”

Jesse, ever friendly, nodded. “What’re you doing down here?”

“Studying,” Moira said vaguely. “A lot of things happened; I wanted to record it all.” With a long arm she gestured to the rest of the room. There wasn’t much to see.

Hanzo coughed delicately. “Do you know a way out? That  _doesn’t_  use that staircase?”

A strange look crossed Moira’s face but she smiled hesitantly after a moment. She coughed again. “Of course,” she said when she caught her breath. She moved to the dusty leather satchel, tucking the notebook into one of its many pockets and swinging it over her shoulders. The lantern she carried in one of her long, gangly arms. “It’s about time I leave, anyway.”

“Really ‘preciate it,” Jesse said as they followed in her wake. “Was wonderin’ if you could answer a few questions we had.”

Moira glanced over her shoulder at them and moved to walk beside them. She held the lantern aloft, though it wasn’t needed with the eerie electric lights. Still, it let the hallway around them be more illuminated than the old lights allowed and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “If I can,” she said hesitantly. “There’s a lot about this place that people don’t know about.”

“What  _happened_?” Hanzo asked. “The lobby’s trashed and everything looks abandoned.”

The woman shrugged. “That’s pretty much what happened,” she admitted. “This used to be a hospital to treat tuberculosis and polio. I think it functioned as a hospital in some way since the Civil War, even – there’s a battlefield somewhere nearby in Princeton.” She coughed and cleared her throat. “Dusty,” she explained quickly though neither of them asked; neither commented on it either.

“I remember seeing that,” Hanzo admitted but didn’t elaborate.

Moira nodded absently. “Did you see a map?” she asked and they two of them nodded. “Then you saw the laboratories – we were just in one of them. Doctors and scientists worked to see if they could develop cures or vaccines or better treatment for either disease. Testing patients were held separately from the overflow quarantine ones here, too. Eventually they decided that this place wasn’t…needed anymore and so all funding for such research was pulled and this wing especially was abandoned once the last patient died.”

“What happened to the rest of the hospital?” Jesse asked. “Is this the basement level?”

“One of them,” Moira replied vaguely and said nothing more about it. “What were you doing down here?”

Hesitantly they explained, which made Moira laugh in a surprisingly deep and booming voice. “Hiding from marriage!” she sounded gleeful. “I remember doing that once.” She coughed as she caught her breath.

They laughed along with her for a while. Moira led them down another hall.

“Why are the lights working here?” Hanzo asked curiously. “And why is this place buried? I can’t imagine it was good for the patients and we saw maps…”

Moira glanced at the lights. “Oh,” she said, a slight rattle in her voice. She cleared her throat and it went away. “I fixed them up. Need light to work, after all. As for why this place was buried, the powers that be probably decided that it was too dangerous to reuse a hospital for polio and tuberculosis. They shipped dirt and concrete and stone, boarded everything up…and I guess they built another hospital on top of the ruins.” Again she sounded wistful though why, they weren’t sure. Figuring it was a personal reason, neither asked. “But first they tried to burn everything down; burn the sickness out and all.”

For a while they walked in silence until they came to a door that hung on its hinges. The golden lights didn’t reach this room and ended around here; clearly this was where Moira entered and exited.

Jesse and Hanzo hesitated at the doorway. A cool draft drifted up from the darkness, making them shiver. Just inside the doorway, Moira lifted her lantern and illuminated the small cement room. Half of the room was taken up by a stairway; the other half appeared to be some kind of ramp. Both dropped down into darkness out of the circle of light cast by the lantern. An old mechanized cart – rusted, covered in dust and dirt – rested in the landing before both the ramp and stairs began to dip downward. Against the wall was a small breaker box and another with an industrial switch. She coughed into her hand again as they looked around.

“Just this way,” Moira said with what looked like an attempt at a reassuring smile.

It took them another moment to gather the courage to enter and when they did, they pulled out their flashlights again to cast more light.

The long ramp didn’t seem to end.

“What is this place?” Hanzo asked and winced when his voice echoed.

Moira visibly hesitated. “Supply chute,” she said very carefully. “Ah…the staff used to live lower on the hill. When the paths got cold and icy they used this tunnel to get to the hospital. The sledge here would take supplies and…other things…up and down.”

Foot poised to take the first step, Jesse hesitated. “This is the body chute, isn’t it?”

The woman looked apologetic and turned away as she coughed into her fist again. “One of many.”

“BC,” Hanzo realized. “That’s what it meant, right? On the maps? Body chute?”

Moira made a face. “I wished they didn’t include that. ‘Supply chute’ sounds so much better; that’s it’s primary function, after all.”

Backing up, Hanzo pulled out his phone and snapped a few quick pictures of the sledge, the switches, the yawning darkness beyond the gentle glow of Moira’s lantern. “Sorry,” he said as Moira and Jesse waited patiently. “This is…once I’m not creeped out by this it’ll be so much more interesting.”

Hesitantly, Moira smiled. “You’re…welcome to come back,” she said almost shyly. “I don’t mind the company I suppose.”

“Maybe with some liquid courage,” Jesse said with a theatrical shiver. He looped arms with Hanzo again and the three of them began walking down the stairs. “No offense, but this place gives me the creeps.”

Moira simply smiled sadly and said nothing as they walked along. It wasn’t a creepy silence, but it was at least a relatively comfortable one. She coughed a few times more but offered no explanation; they figured it was just lingering dust. After a few minutes they came to the final landing of the steps and a large metal doorway.

“Oh,” Hanzo breathed, disappointed, but Moira didn’t seem bothered. She put the lantern down at her feet and wrapping her long hands around the metal handle, twisted. With a tortured groan the handle turned and Moira hauled on the door until it opened.

“There you go,” she said and gestured to them.

About to take a step forward, Hanzo paused. “You’re not coming?”

Moira glanced out the door. “Not right now,” she decided. “I still have a few other things to get done.”

She looked surprised again when Hanzo held out his hand. “Well,” he said as gently as he could. “Thanks for showing us the way out.”

Her hands were just as cool and clammy as they had been when they first shook her hand and just as she did then, she wiped her palms nervously on the sides of her duster. She opened her mouth a few times as if to say something but seemed to decide against it.

“Goodbye,” Jesse told her cheerfully and she waved awkwardly.

As they walked arm-in-arm out the door, Hanzo glanced back with his legs straddling the threshold. Moira was bending to pick up her lantern, turning to walk back up the long stairway. “Bye,” he added and she glanced back over her shoulder. The skin there was startlingly red and blistered and he jumped.

Feeling him jump, Jesse looked down and tugged Hanzo closer. “You okay?” he asked.

“Her eye,” Hanzo said, looking up at Jesse. Looking around, they realized that they had been spat out into a small copse of trees. More than that, it was dark out.

Looking around, Jesse flicked on his flashlight and looked around. “We weren’t in there _that_  long…were we?” he glanced down at Hanzo, tugging him closer. “And what’s this about her eye?” They both turned back to the doorway and found it gone.

But that was wrong – beneath the glow cast by their flashlights, they could both just barely see it beneath a thick covering of dirt and moss and roots, the edges of the vault-like passage weathered and worn by time to resemble rocks.

They glanced at each other.

“It’s not even Halloween,” Jesse joked weakly.

Shaking just a little, Hanzo pulled out his phone and frowned. “10 missed calls from Orisa,” he said and fumbling, Jesse reached for his. “Hana…Ana…”

“5 missed calls from everyone,” Jesse muttered. “I’ll call Ana.”

“Orisa,” Hanzo agreed, already pressing the phone to his ear.

Amelie was the one to actually come for them – her house was evidently close enough that she could easily swing by and pick them up. If she was upset that they were getting dirt and dust all over the interior of her car she showed no sign of it, turning on the heat to ward off the autumn chill.

At Watchpoint, Orisa greeted them with an odd look on her face and it wasn’t until he saw her that Hanzo remembered the string. “You got lost, didn’t you?” she accused but her eyes and tone were relieved and she wrapped them in tight hugs. “I  _told_  you to take the cord!”

Hanzo and Jesse looked at each other. “We’ll listen next time,” Hanzo said shakily. “Promise.”

She sent them on their way but not before feeding them some of the leftovers from the cottage’s kitchen. Amelie joined them briefly before leaving, admitting that Watchpoint at night (when she wasn’t drunk) creeped her out.

Unsurprisingly they were in big trouble when they got back but it blew over quickly. They didn’t say anything about the basement level until they were cleaned up and cuddling in their bed and even then they didn’t say what was really on their minds.

Early the next morning, by unspoken agreement, Jesse and Hanzo went to Watchpoint and snuck into the main lobby. To be fair the doors weren’t really locked in the front so they only had to avoid being caught by any of the nurses.

They snuck along the smaller halls on the side, places that Hanzo was more familiar with than Jesse, and careful made their way to the unused halls by the old ER bays. A few times they got turned around before they found the old hallway that Orisa had pointed them to.

The both of them frowned down at the small metal cart. Just as there had been the previous day, there was a ball of cord, flares, flashlights, and first-aid kits. They looked just as untouched as they had been previously, were in exactly the same places (save the flashlights, which they had returned to Orisa) as they had been the previous day.

There was an addition: a small metal pipe, maybe what had once been a piece of rebar, threaded through the core of the ball of cord like a spindle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So recently I learned that my great-grandmother died of tuberculosis…coincidentally while I was discussing the concept of body chutes with my mother. Fascinating :P
> 
> We were also discussing how creepy hospital basements are and the times she and/or I have walked into a freight elevator and found a dead body. 
> 
> I love stories about buildings being reused or repurposed so that also inspired this idea that Watchpoint is actually a lot larger than it looks and there is an underground area that used to be the main part of the hospital. This is pretty much not true in GD because I had wanted to stay away from the supernatural aspect but this was kind of a fun idea. I’ll probably come back to Moira a few times because I have a feeling that she’s really good friends with Mei - pretty much why she’s always sleepy - and clearly Orisa and Pums know about her (or at least know something’s up).


End file.
